


A Reason to Live

by Virodeil



Series: The Universe of Reasons [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Additional Warnings in Author’s Note, Angst/Drama, Canon Divergence - Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Changing lives forever, Character Development, Character Study, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluffy Flavours, Gen, Hidden Depths, Hidden Talents, Hurt/Comfort, More tags to be added or edited, Mystery, Other, POV First Person, POV Harry Potter, Stream of Consciousness, character introspection, hidden identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 51
Words: 82,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25816813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virodeil/pseuds/Virodeil
Summary: Things post-Voldemort deteriorate, instead of getting better. All the losses and damages of people, money and property only result in even more losses and damages. Amidst this, Harry Potter, the boy who never expected to be a man, scrambles to fill in his new lease of life.And then, in one of his darkest years, he encounters proof that aliens are not a myth….He dives in, just so.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Blaise Zabini, Harry Potter & Original Character(s), Harry Potter & Teal’c (Stargate), Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Justin Finch-Fletchley & Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter, Susan Bones & Harry Potter
Series: The Universe of Reasons [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950988
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	1. Snapshots of Me

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline follows the _Harry Potter_ books. As far as this story goes, Stargate Command isn’t active yet. Stargate elements will start to appear about two-thirds down the story. Otherwise, please pay attention to the chapter warnings, if there’s any, as some contents could be pretty upsetting. Oh, and the lengths of the chapters vary wildly – blame my muse for that. And if you’re asking about pairings… no, there’s no definite pairing here, except for some canon ones, or much of romance for that matter. No bashing, too, but for some _seeming_ bashing.
> 
> I would welcome criticisms, suggestions, corrections etc, especially for the Stargate part, as I know so little of it. This leg of the journey is nearly finished, but I can still slip in or change things. Otherwise, I hope you will enjoy the journey. ☺
> 
> Rey

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 11th June 1998

“Harry….”

“Yes, Mione?”

“What did you do to this place? It’s… _unrecognisable_.”

“Well, Kreacher didn’t help, but Winky did, and turned out I inherited many things and people from many extinct families, so now I got many house-elves to help me redecorate, so–.”

“ _Harry_!”

“They _wanted_ it, Mione. They _die_ without a family. I’m not going to let them die if I can do anything about it, and they’re happiest when they’ve got work to do.”

“It’s still _slavery_ , Harry! I can’t believe it–!”

A whirlwind of bushy brown hair makes a beeline back to the front door, moments after stepping foot on the entry hall of the airy home. Soon after, the occupant of the said hall returns to one: _me_.

To think that I looked forward to Hermione’s opinion on Sirius’ old home that the host of house-elves _and I_ have been toiling to refurbish, all these weeks….

It’s just a month after the Battle of Hogwarts, _I know_. A month full of hasty-but-still-heart-wrenching funerals and sometimes-unpleasant discoveries and mostly-tearful reunions. Emotions are volatile more often than not and broken and often rub jaggedly against each other, _I know it well_ , but reality _still_ hurts.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 31st July 1998

I am eighteen years old today. An adult not only in the eyes of the wizarding world but also the mundane one. Kreacher baked me a birthday cake, Neville sent me a birthday card and a cutting of a soothing-smell-perfuming plant whose name I can’t pronounce, Andy wishes me well for this day onward, Teddy gives me his customary wet morning kisses, and… that’s all.

Somehow, the birthday that I celebrated alone while still trapped in Privet Drive number four was much more festive.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 21st August 1998

“Andy, this is…. There’s nothing…. The House of Black is….”

“As black as the name is? Composed of only the three of us at present? Unacknowledged by the Family of Malfoy as the primary House?”

“Well, yes, but….”

“You’re progressing nicely, dear. For one who is learning so late of how to be a proper lord, you are learning quite fast, in fact. It’s time to show it to everyone else.”

“Andy….”

The air of levity abruptly leaves the woman seated across from me, making her look decades older and nearly as haunted as the sister who shared her features, although thankfully not as mad.

“I know what you meant to say, Harry,” she sighs, and guilt heaps itself on me like a ton of stones.

The guilt becomes a twisty snake that writhes in my chest and guts, when her blue-grey eyes look into mine with a frankness that also makes me feel exposed. It becomes only worse when she continues with, “I wish to belong to a family. You wish to belong to a family. And Teddy _needs_ a family. We deserve it. _You_ deserve it, Harry. All that I’ve been teaching you these two months and more, they are never meant to steer you to a particular path. They are never meant to resurrect the House of Black as it was, either. By taking up your _legitimate_ lordship for the House of Black, you protect yourself and us – _all_ of us, up to the house-elves and more – and it doesn’t mean that you will lose your lordship of the House of Potter. You just need to show up in a few public places as Lord Black, as I said before, and you don’t need to do it everyday.”

Damn. I can’t refute her. She’s spot-on with my wishes, too.

She _also_ taught me about the worth of my Slytherin side, though, these past months, in addition to all the lessons about managing a House and behaving as a lord. Bargaining advantageously is one of such lessons. So, “If I do this, don’t ask me to stay full-time in the magical world, please? And don’t scoff at my non-magical lessons? I do want something to fall back onto if the magical world acts up again.”

She raises an eyebrow to that.

And then she demands that I couch the words, tone and posture of the deliverance to be lordlier than I’ve just managed.

Oh, _damn_. Another lordly lesson.

Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, 22nd August 1998

“It’s so… odd.”

“What’s odd, Harry?”

“This place…. Mister Fortescue was so kind to me. I spent most of the summer before our third year here, working on my homework, and he helped me much with my history assignment. You know, about the witch burnings. And I keep expecting him to come here and begin chattering about history. He… loved history, so much. I think my history assignment that year nearly matched Hermione’s.”

“In length? Or in mark?”

“Both.”

I grin wanly at Neville, who is seated across from me at one of the small, round tables just outside the newly opened ice-cream parlour, and he replies likewise.

“Marks seemed the farthest, in our minds, when the castle was occupied by the Death Eaters,” he murmurs, eyes tethered to his bowl of melting strawberry ice cream but unfocused.

My heart skips a beat. Hogwarts. The castle is never the same after the battle, with so many potant curses and deaths of innocents marring its grounds and halls. It’s truly a ruined, haunted castle, now, like what the Muggles would see when the wards were still up. And those very wards, accumulated and strengthened in a millennium, are _all_ down, at this point, after Voldemort’s forces tore them apart. The teachers, likewise, with only Professors Binns, Sprout, Sinistra and Vector remaining.

Hogwarts is no more, and the first of September looms dark not only for the school-aged students, but also the wizarding society of Great Britain.

My first home is no more.

“D’you know,” I force the words out, regardless of how croaky my voice sounds, “that Hogwarts isn’t the only school round here? Andy told me. The scholarships can’t cover everyone, and the power requirement for Hogwarts entry is rather high, too. And the Death Eaters _slaughtered_ them.”

He nods woodenly and wipes at his eyes.

My own eyes and cheeks are wet, now I realise.

Yes, the first of Andy’s prescribed outings is a big failure, because of one small remark that my traitorous mouth let out.

Longbottom Hall, 31st August 1998

“Thanks for inviting me, Neville.”

“Thanks for agreeing to come, yourself. I…. It’s…. This place is so… empty, after Gran passed away.”

“My place, too, if not for Andy and Teddy and the house-elves.”

Neville laughs a little, as we leave the public floo of his home. “How’re you coping with the elves?”

I grin ruefully. “Bossy little blighters. I love them, though. They mean well. They’ve helped me and Andy and Teddy so much, not to mention keeping up with everything.”

His laughter turns more genuine, so does my grin, which quickly becomes a soft smile. “They were bad, when I got them. The Death Eaters didn’t treat them well. The non-Death Eaters were surprisingly not much better in treating them. But they loved their former bosses, anyway,” I confide. “They didn’t get along with each other and Kreacher, at first, but the total makeover of my place was apparently a good bonding experience for all of us. Now, what about your baby murderous plants?”

He hits my arm, grinning. And outright laughs when I rub at the throbbing spot, grimacing. That sod.

And then he confines us to his many, many greenhouses… which makes for quite an adventure, especially among his more blood-thirsty, cantankerous and otherwise touchy-feely babies.

Nope. I’m _not_ going to tease him about his babies, _ever again_.

Atrium of British Ministry of Magic, 1st September 1998

“Nev… you sure? They’re staring at us….”

“Well, Gran wanted me to be an Auror, and Dad used to be an Auror. I would at least like to try to be an Auror.”

“Well, my dad, too, and I’d like to try, myself. Plus McGonagall did so much for me in that career consultation. But how can I be an Auror if they keep staring at me like that?”

“Face it, Harry, you’re ‘the Man Who Conquered’.”

“Damn it, Nev. Not you too!”

I really, really, really want to hit the grin off Neville’s face. But lately he rarely looks happy, especially since the passing of his grandmother.

Well, and the fellow Auror trainees gathered here will spread a bad, bad, bad rumour, too, if they see me doing… anything, let alone hitting the prat.

Plus, Ron’s just stepped out of one of the floo stations, and he’s making a beeline to our little spot beside the pond bearing the under-construction new magical statue.

Time to be “Harry Potter, Man Who Conquered,” then.

The Leaky Cauldron, 5th September 1998

“Hi, Harry.”

“Oh, hi Hannah, Susan. Umm, sorry for asking, but why’re you here? I thought I was meeting Neville?”

Hannah laughs, her cheeks pink, her eyes sparkling. Susan just… blushes, and refuses to look at me.

I frown.

And then, “Neville thought it’s a good idea for a double date,” Hannah confides, while dodging an elbow to the ribs courtesy of her friend and former Housemate.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

I look at the two girls, goggle-eyed and speechless. What should I say? What should I do? I’m blushing, myself, for Merlin’s sake! Damn you, Neville! Wait till I switch that prat’s tea with… something, next Monday. See how great he deals with surprises.

Diagon Alley, 3rd October 1998

“Harry?”

“Yes, Mione?”

“Could we talk? For just a minute?”

“I’m on duty, Mione. Can it wait till the evening? My shift ends at that time.”

“ _Mufliato_. – I just…. Harry, I’m sorry, about your home, about the elves. I…. In my training, I came across a book, and it detailed the history of the elves, from the beginning till it’s perverted by our kind, and…. I’m _sorry_ , Harry.”

I smile sadly at Hermione, who is anxiously wringing her hands before me after she’s cornered me beside Quality Quidditch Supplies. “You know that books aren’t always correct, too, Mione? Think Lockhart.”

She hits my shoulder weakly and laughs, with more than a hint of a sob in it.

I hug her. I can’t help it. She may be only my fourth friend after Hedwig, Ron and Hagrid, but she has never left me in my hour of need, while she can indeed do something about it. Being at odds with her has been hard on me.

“Just… think and research carefully before you hurt someone, next? I mean, unless it’s a fight for your life or freedom,” I murmur into her bushy mane. “And the elves would like to know you’re appreciative of their work, too, I bet. We did work hard on that house partly so that we could display it to you.”

She hugs me hard, in response.

I don’t care that I’ll be reprimanded by my trainee supervisor after this, or the Chief Auror, or even Head of DMLE. – I tighten my own hug on my best friend.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 25th December 1998

“Hello, Missus Tonks, Harry, Teddy. Thank you very much for inviting us,” Neville says as I beckon him in.

“Yes, thank you. I… we didn’t look forward to spending Yuletide alone,” Susan affirms shily.

“It’d be so lonely…. My relatives from Mum’s and Dad’s sides are all busy. Besides, I’m of age, this year, so they don’t have to take me in for the holiday,” Hannah smiles wistfully.

Andy frowns, as do I, with Teddy mimicking us as he sits leaning against my front. “It’s not a good reason to shunt away your own family member, dear,” she says, while pulling Hannah into a hug. I nod firmly… and so does Teddy.

Susan giggles, if a little sadly, apparently catching the little blighter at the act.

Thankfully, instead of wallowing further in our respective familial problems, we then fall into an exchange of our respective jobs and activities, also updates from former yearmates.

The surviving and not hiding or too broken yearmates, at least.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 14th February 1999

“Harry, why are you in a hurry? It’s _Valentines Day_!”

“I’ve got morning shift, Gin. You know that.”

“Can’t you ask for a day off? You’re the Boy Who Lived! And now you’re the Man Who Conquered!”

“I was Public Enemy Number One, too. So?”

“It doesn’t count!”

“It counts, Ginny. People’s opinion of me can turn round fast. You know that, too.”

“I asked for a week off from the Harpies to prepare for this day – for _you_. And now you’re running away from me.”

“I’m not running away anywhere, Ginny. I’m _going to work_. You can ask my superiors if you don’t believe me. You can even ask Ron about it. He’ll take up the shift after me so he should be free right now.”

I’ve been jamming various parts of me into pieces of the Auror trainee uniform in my room, while Ginny’s ranting… and now Teddy toddles in, faithfully guarded by Kreacher.

“Dada!” he proclaims cheerfully, beaming wide, showing off his two newly grown front teeth.

“What? _Dada_? Are you taking Professor Lupin’s place, Harry?” Ginny squawks, apparently switching topics… or being sidelined by the toddler now clinging to my leg.

I give her a sharp glance, before jamming the last piece of my uniform – my outer robe – down my head. “ _Andy_ is the one who taught him that word, Ginny. Go complain to her. I’m just happy that I can be Uncle Harry. Now, Kreacher, please take this little rascal to his grannie. I’m nearly late to report in.”

Ginny huffs and vacates the edge of my bed. “ _Fine_ ,” she snaps. “Be that way. But don’t go crawling back to me, _ever again_.”

I sigh, shrug, and Aparate out.


	2. Sanctuary?

Warnings for: inaccuracy of the family tree of the House of Black, morally grey action, past kidnapping of children, past slavery

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 23rd April 1999

“What?” I hiss to myself as my nightly perusal of the self-updating, variously interconnected, neverending-seeming master journal of holdings of the House of Black comes to the medieval era. The section that I am reading lists the practises of Andromeda _Potter_ , nee Black, who _kidnapped Muggleborn children from their families_ and made them _her brainwashed slaves_.

Apparently, this was her answer to the hunting and burning of the magical folks – or the people accused to be witches and wizards. The Statute of Secrecy was in the process of creation, but she felt that it took too long, as more and more helpless magical blood was spilt, regardless of its purity. Harold Potter the Second, her betrothed, agreed with her, and aided her as she invented and perfected a slew of cloaking charms that she then used to sneak to Hogwarts, to link the Book of Students with one that she had prepared for herself. And then they went hunting, themselves, on Muggle families that produced Muggleborn witches and wizards.

The two of them took the children who hadn’t been introduced to Hogwarts yet, or had rejected their placement at Hogwarts for any reason, and Obliviated certain elements of their memories, replacing those with the horrors of the skewed trials and death sentences that the magical suffered, ingendering gratitude and loyalty to their “rescuers.”

Throughout her life, Andromeda Potter nee Black and her husband had “rescued” _five hundred and seventy-three_ Muggleborn children. Who were cooped up in Andromeda’s personal property deep in the mountains of Wales for training as loyal servants of the House of Black. To be _distributed_ as she wished later on to members of the House of Black that she trusted.

And the practises went on until Phineas Nigellus the Third, son and heir of the Headmaster of Hogwarts Phineas Nigellus the Second, halted them _hundreds of years later_ , citing that such crass practises were no longer needed and the Muggleborn should be left in peace.

But the descendents of the kidnapees remain until now, all gathered in the original property of Andromeda Black-Potter, as the House of Black became smaller and smaller and more “untrustworthy” in Andromeda’s ruling throughout the decades in the nineteen-hundreds. Their bloodlines and loyalties have been irrevocably tied to the House of Black, with how they have been bred, enspelt and moulded from generation to generation.

The only comfort that I can take is that, at least from these limited accounts, they have never been given to the mad or overly cruel parts of the House of Black, such as Bellatrix and one of her aunts who wanted the Wizengamot to sanction Muggle hunting, and the other Potters apparently were left oblivious to these practises, thus not taking part in what Harold Potter the Second was doing.

A cold, cold comfort, that.

Now, what should I do with them? Bred so long in captivity like that, like _cattle_ , they must be agorophobic and unable to function other than being menial servants, not to mention actively encouraged to _not_ defend themselves.

Damn. I need to find Andromeda’s personal journals. Bye-bye sleep. I miss you so.

Black Sanctuary, 1st May 1999

“I’m… umm… whoa!”

The wards in Andromeda’s secluded slave-breeding place apparently only truly let in her and her bloodline, which is mingled with a Potter’s, and I am an example of such mingling, although I’m not from the direct bloodline. _And_ , because of that, I can see the entirety of the place, unlike even what the “usual” Lord Black would see without this key “ingredient.”

Lord Black would only see the house – a three-story weathered stone building with stone shingles as roof – and hectares of grounds, which include a large patch of forest and a small, deep lake. At least, it’s what Andromeda listed in the master journal of holdings. And my Portkey has indeed just deposited me on the porch of the aforementioned house. But now, as I look round, I can _also_ see the numerous small cabins mostly hidden behind the treeline.

The quarters of the servants, as Andromeda noted in one of her personal journals, which was protected by a ward that scanned my intentions before it would open to me.

She truly cared for them, then, in her own twisted way.

I sigh. With such evidence, I can’t go into this gung-ho, like I accused Hermione of doing to the house-elves. These poor people would have been truly loyal to Andromeda and her bloodline. I need to approach them very, very carefully.

A magical scan for human presences shows that the forest nearer to the house – the _main_ house – is populated by such cabins, clustered tightly yet still invisible to the naked eye but for the frontmost ones. Contrarily, the main house is wholely unoccupied, even by house-elves as per my second, more in-depth scan for living beings.

I frown. A Black property without a house-elf in it is odd, despite the multitude of human servants available here.

Before I can call out to the cabins, though, a smallish figure emerges from the trees and approaches me.

A girl who looks a few years younger than I am, it turns out.

And she immediately prostrates herself a few feet before she reaches me, shaking from head to toe, murmuring, “My lord,” in a wavering voice.

I scowl. Damn you, Andromeda and Harold.

“Rise.” I fight not to snap at her. It’s not her fault _at all_ that she’s terrified and does what she does.

I inquire about the house-elves when she has complied with the order, although she refuses to look at me. Her puzzled reply that the house-elves are not needed since she can take care of the property herself makes me frown.

“So all the cabins over there among the trees are all yours?” I point out wryly.

She falls kissing the grass again, in response, and shaking harder than before.

Huh. So she came out by herself in an attempt to save her fellows from the possibly unfriendly eye of the current Lord Black, not knowing that _I_ was exempt from the wards that hide them. And neither she nor her fellows apparently felt the brush of the magical scans that I broadcast earlier, unlike when they were done on me when on the run and in Auror-training practises, or the poor folks would have known that this subterfuge wouldn’t have worked.

“You would’ve done well as a Gryffindor,” I remark with a sigh while approaching the prostrate form of the girl and helping her to her feet. “Now, please lead me to your friends? I’m here to help you, not to harm you, or I wouldn’t have been able to see you at all, would I? I don’t have much time today, but I’m free tomorrow and I’ll come back to help you more, then.”

And here I thought I’d spend all day tomorrow spoiling Teddy silly….


	3. Reaching Out

Warning for: past slavery

St. Mungo’s Hospital, 31st October 1999

“Ah… Finch-Fletchley? You work here?”

“As a healer assistant, Potter. Healer Smethwick was _kind_ enough to take me in, but not as an apprentice.”

I grimace. At the pins-and-needles sensation that results from Justin cleaning the aweful gash on my left side that one of the runaway unmarked Death Eaters managed to graze me with, but also at the hint that, as a Muggleborn, he has few – if any – doors open to him here in the magical world, regardless of his qualifications. It happens in the Auror Corps, too.

“Ever tried studying overseas?” I offer tentatively, groaning and gritting my teeth as he gently packs a healthy dollop of a rangy-brown, pungent-smelling salve into the gash.

“Not yet. I will. Not holding much hope, though,” he bites out. “Now don’t go dirtying this out or washing it away before it settles in or the wound is healed. If you do, I’ll advise Healer Smethwick to give you the most unpleasant examination ever.”

I grin despite the pain and his uninviting air. “Have time next weekend? I know so little about the mundane world, and Hermione’s off doing Unspeakable things. You up to being a tour guide? I’m bringing Teddy with me. You know, Professor Lupin’s son. I promise he won’t spray food on you.”

He shoos me away with a huff.

But I do spy a small smile flitting past his lips.

Success.

Black Sanctuary, 25th December 1999

Being so long and so far removed from the main civilisation, Andromeda’s slaves and their descendents – _former_ slaves, if I have any say in it, and I _do_ –have created their own, apparently.

Christmas or Yuletide hasn’t been part of it, somehow, although the birthday of their current lord or lady – who is _not_ Lord Black, but rather Andromeda’s “worthy” descendents – is always celebrated, including mine this year. But this year onward, I hope to introduce them to the joys of giving and receiving gifts on this certain day, like I was introduced to in my first year at Hogwarts. Hence my presence here this morning, before Neville, Hannah and Susan come to celebrate with me, Andy and Teddy at Grimmauld Place. Andy refused to come with me, citing that this is to be my special time with whom she claims as my people, so here I am, standing alone on the porch with shrunken trunks of various gifts in my robe pocket, all of them hand-made by me through all these months.

And, from the forest, a horde of children run eagerly towards me, still much more silent than ordinary children would be but grinning wildly. The teens and adults follow suit, although in a more reserved manner… _but still_!

I grin back at them and yell out enthusiastically once they are near enough, “Presents! Raise your hands if you want one!”

And they _all_ raise their hands, with bright looks on their faces.

Success.

Months of careful approach and me trying to convince them that I never mean ill to them, and they trust me now.

I hate being the focus of attention, especially by so many people like this, but this scene is _worth it_.

Black Sanctuary, 1st January 2000

“You’re their _king_ , aren’t you, Harry?” Susan smiles suddenly, in-between enjoying her bowl of butter pudding.

I raise an eyebrow, while chewing my bite-sized steak slowly, buying myself more time.

“What made you say that?” I say at last, when she raises her own eyebrow, looking quite amused and even smug.

She looks round exaggeratedly, in response, a small grin fixed firmly on her face. I needn’t follow her gaze to affirm what’s going on, as I already looked round myself many times over this evening.

The residents of Black Sanctuary _invited_ me, my family and also my trusted companions to celebrate New Year Day with them. They confessed that they have been learning as much as they can all these months since I “allowed” them to venture outside, and they noticed that the turning of the new year is apparently special for “the Outsiders,” hence the invitation, days after I surprised them with gifts for Christmas. And here we are: Andy, Teddy, Neville, Hannah, Susan and I, seated at a luxurious and comfortable table set on a dais in a snowy clearing deep in the forest, plied with various small-portioned foods and warming drinks, while various residents parade in front of us, performing many magical and mundane things for our entertainment.

And the performers never fail to bow deeply before the table – or rather, as Neville pointed out just before Susan spoke up, before _me_ – before they vacate the clearing for the next batch to show off.

I won’t deign Susan with an affirmation, though. That would just be like inviting trouble to come to _my_ home and roost there!

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 14th February 2000

“Ginny isn’t coming, dear?”

“No. I broke up with her that day, Andy. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Oh, sorry. Slipped my mind, I suppose. With all the training and my own studies….”

“It’s all right, Harry. Now, are you still friends with her?”

“I suppose. She sent me invitations to watch her matches with the Harpies, at any rate. But things always came up just when I was gearing up to go.”

“Well, we can go watch a game today, I think. The Harpies happen to be playing the Tornados.”

“Matchmaking me, Andy?”

“Wouldn’t think of it, my lord. Just helping you maintain good connections, my lord.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. Andy looks so impish, with her bright, laughing eyes and small, mischievous grin. Like this, she looks so different from her sister Bellatrix.

“No matchmaking.” I wag a finger at her with mock severity. “Teddy needn’t be exposed to such… uncooth behaviour.”

We break up in chortles, then. More, when Teddy, seated in his high chair, looks back and forth between the two of us, puzzled.

Damn. I love them.

Black Sanctuary, 31st July 2000

“Whoa,” I gape when Chilla, the girl who first approached me here more than a year ago, presents me with an open wooden box full of…, “Are those crystal balls?” for my birthday.

She courtsies and smiles shyly, with all the other residents standing behind her, silent with hopeful anticipation. “The Lady and Lord devised memory crystals to store subjects that we must learn about to aid the masters and mistresses we were assigned to, my lord,” she explains a little diffidently. “We were taught as children to order and utilise our minds, aside from other things that would help us maintain a household, so that we could make use of the memory crystals safely and well when we attained the age of majority at seventeen years old.”

“I overheard my lord talking about not having enough time to learn everything.” She is kneeling and trembling a little, now, sounding and looking much more unsure than before. “I…. Well, we gathered knowledge from some of our own memory crystals and various Outsider masters for you, my lord. Please, we mean no offence. We just meant to help you.”

“Oh, nice!” I exclaim, forcing myself to display cheerfulness in the face of her – _and the others’_ – fear _of offending me_. “I don’t know Occlumency, though, if that’s what you meant, so sadly I can’t use these. But if you’ve got a memory crystal for that, it’d be great!”

Her smile is back – success. But she’s still kneeling – damn it. So, “Are we having this party while kneeling? It wouldn’t be a good party, then, would it? How would you dance while kneeling? I think Neville looked forward to dancing with you. I looked forward to this party, myself.” Sorry, Neville, Hannah, but I can’t dance, and I shan’t make this sweet girl think I’m deliberately harming her by stepping on her toes while dancing.

Aaaand, she stands up. Woo-hoo!


	4. Metamorphmagus

Credit to: well, somebody, for the “returning to baseline self periodically to relax the magical muscles for a metamorph” part; please inform me if you know who wrote it first, so I can cite them properly

Warning for: minor character death

The Rookery, 11th November 2000

“My condolences, Luna.”

“Thank you, Harry. Daddy would rather that you congratulate him, though. He’s with Mummy now, after all.”

“But what about you?”

“My time will come, but for now I’m happy for him and Mummy.”

“Oh.”

“You’re a sweet blue angel, Harry. Don’t let the wrakspurts and nargles influence you.”

“Oh. Umm. Okay. Umm. What’s your plan after this, if I might ask? Maybe I could help? Or Nev? Or somebody?”

I get a warm if brief hug for that, and a beatific smile from Luna, in front of the freshly made grave of her father beside her house.

“I am going to go with you and Neville someday, but not now. Go reconnect with Blaise Zabini, for now, Harry.”

“Erh. Zabini? What for? I mean, why? And I didn’t know Zabini at all while in Hogwarts, you know, so I can’t be _reconnecting_ with him.”

She pokes at my chest with a forefinger. “You were both in Hogwarts, you were both enrolled in nineteen-ninety-one, and you were both missing from your last year. Those are _three_ connections already, Harry,” she lectures. “And Blaise is a ‘they’, just like you.” Then, maybe seeing my confounded look, she adds, “Go search and experiment, Harry. Full metamorphmagi are never just a ‘she’ or a ‘he’. You should rename your godchild, by the way. They’re a full metamorph, just like their mother.”

“But I’m not–.”

“Go _search_ , Harry, and don’t forget to _try_.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ve got nothing to _reconnect_ with Zabini, though. I can’t just tell him – all right, _them_! Stop tickling me! – that Luna Lovegood sent me.”

“Why not? They knew me while we were in Hogwarts, after all.”

“Oh.”

Getting a dedpan, are-you-mad look from _Luna_ , of all people, is somehow pretty embarrassing.

And then I feel ashamed of myself, on realising that the look is usually aimed _towards_ Luna, from various people, _including me_.

Well, now, let’s just hope that I won’t get such a look from Zabini, _too_ , shall we?

If I got any spare time after my Auror training, NEWT studies, A-Level studies, Teddy-time and House-time, that is.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 25th December 2000

“Hi, Andy. Umm. Before the others start arriving, I’d like to show you something.”

“Show me what?”

“Umm, I’ve been practising. Dora left her journal about metamorphmagi for Teddy, and I, umm, peeked in. Sorry. But Luna said I’m a metamorph, so I wanted to try. So, umm, she – Dora, I mean – said a metamorph should return to their base looks, occasionally, so they’re not so… high-strung. When sleeping is best, or when with your closest relatives or friends. So, umm, I did it, and I… wanted to show you.”

“Oh, Harry.”

Andy hugs me close, cuddling me, and I melt into it, willing my nerves to settle.

And then, witnessed only by her, Teddy and Kreacher, I will my magic to relax its hold on my body, from my hair to my nails, like I’ve been practising day and night since Luna told me more than a month ago.

It’s _always_ a nice and freeing experience, when I manage to do it. Now, even more.

Especially because I don’t have any eye problem in this form, or scars, and the years of regimented intakes of healing and nutritive potions _finally_ show a big difference.

I’m still slender, still fair-skinned, still green-eyed though more of a leafy green, still black-haired though not messy, and still somewhat like my usual self despite everything, just much more androgynous. But now I’m _more than six feet tall_ , possessed of heightened senses, and double-sexed.

I don’t think I’m quite human anymore.

Well, since I firstly achieved this form, I’ve got the suspicion that the bloodlines that breed metamorphmagi aren’t quite human in the first place. But I’m showing it to _my family_ , now, and I don’t know how they – especially Andy – are going to react. Especially _if_ I tell Andy about my suspicion.

Well, she’s looking warmly at me right now, in any case, and she never rejected Dora Tonks-Lupin for being a metamorph, so I’ll cherish it as long as I can.


	5. Fresh Starts

The Leaky Cauldron, 1st January 2001

“Zabini?”

“Yes?”

“Umm, firstly, I’d like you to know that you’re not in trouble. I’m on duty currently, but… that’s not… I mean, I just…. Do you have a moment?”

“Yes?”

“Just, do you know Luna Lovegood?”

“Yes?”

“Did she ever tell you that I was going to contact you some time?”

“Yes?”

I huff. Here I am, garbed in my Auror uniform, and I’ve got to actively prevent myself from squirming before the _civilian_ seated at one of the corner tables at the Leaky.

But then again, _this_ civilian is so… blasé, and stingy with words, and _not_ distracted by any other thing, and rates high in Luna’s regard, and seems so openly perceptive. I can deal with angry, uncaring, professional, sulky, disapproving and even tearful, but not… _this_.

And they know it.

All right, Potter. “Did she tell you why I was supposed to contact you?”

“No.”

Oh. Great. Nice of you, Luna.

“She wanted me to ‘reconnect’ with you.” The air-quotes emphasise the point, I hope.

But the answer is… just…, “Yes?”

I’m beginning to despise this prat.

“Are you free this weekend?” What I do for you, Luna….

“Yes.”

“Let’s meet up, then. Where’s a good place for you?”

“Nowhere.”

Damn you, prat. “Wait in front of Grimmauld Place number eleven, then. It’s in Islington, London. I’ll pick you up at ten Saturday morning.”

And they _smile approvingly_ at me. Git.

British Auror Office, 28th July 2001

“Hey, Harry, why’d you look so glum? Cheer up, mate! No more being bossed round by everybody! We’re full Aurors today!”

“No mind, Ron. M’fine. Go on. Look, Robards wants to talk to you. I need to go home quick. Want to make sure everything’s set before I move in. Talk to you and Nev in the flat this evening?”

“Well, all right. See you, then.”

I slump into my seat as soon as Ron wanders out of my newly assigned Auror cubical.

Three years of flash training, and now I’m a full Auror, alongside Ron, Neville, Susan and fifty others. I feel no sense of accomplishment, though. I feel… surreal, more than anything.

It doesn’t help that Andy has never approved of me being an Auror, citing that it’s far too risky yet commonplace for one of her remaining family members and Lord Black to boot. Teddy pulled out his worst tantrum yet, too, on being told that I was going to move into a shared flat with Ron and Neville after we’ve received our Auror badges. And they are _my family_.

Only, if I didn’t train to become an Auror, I would disappoint Ron and the late Professor McGonagall, and I wouldn’t be able to accompany Neville who was equally reluctant to be an Auror, too. I would get hounded by the wizarding world even more than before, as the bonus, since I’m supposed to be their hero and protector.

As for the shared flat, Ron wants to get out of the Burrow and strike out on his own, but he doesn’t have a ready home to move into, unlike Neville and I. And both of us knows _very well_ how touchy Ron is about being a “charity case,” should one of us offer any of our properties to him to stay in. So this sharing is actually for him.

If this doesn’t work, though….

Well, I’ll cross that bridge if I must. Just like before.

Black Sanctuary, 1st September 2001

I look round the main house, which has been turned into a school by the residents under my official permission as Lord Black, in time for the first batch of Muggleborn students for this academic year. I feel a little bit… lost.

I never thought that I would ever own a school, although just semi-officially. I never thought that I would ever induct more Muggleborn children into this community, at that, although my way is superficially different from that of Andromeda Black-Potter’s. My only stipulations to the residents are that they never actively try to induct the students into their ranks under threat of closing the school forever, that they only say that the school is sponsored by “Lord Black” without ever pointing the students at me, and that they keep both themselves and the students safe in any way that they can devise. But those don’t seem enough, somehow. Only, we do _need_ a quality education for magical children, especially the Muggleborn, so I can’t delay opening the school any further.

Hogwarts have never truly recovered from the battle all those years ago. After that, with most of the money funnelled towards rebuilding the wards and sections that Hogwarts herself plus her army of house-elves couldn’t repair, those who are schooled there are mostly Pureblood and Halfblood, as there are too few teachers to educate them, let alone supervise them outside of the classrooms. Year by year, the few Muggleborn who went there dropped out, too, because of the lingering prejudices from the year Voldemort ruled the greater British wizarding world. So, in this new school – simply named the Andromeda School of Magics – the population of Muggleborn students from eleven to seventeen will study, commuting to school and back by way of Portkey whenever possible or getting adopted by a resident here if their family situations are _genuinely_ bad.

I can only hope that the whole place won’t be a target for some _displeased_ blood purists, down the way.

Black Sanctuary, 25th December 2001

“Oh! Nice! Different from Hogwarts, for certain, but I think I can like it. Maybe I could teach Herbology here someday?”

“Me too. If Tom decides not to sell the Leaky to me, I can help round here. Maybe as a cook? You do have some boarders here, right? Or do you have house-elves for that, like Hogwarts?”

“Umm, no, actually, Hannah. Most of the children go to school daily. Those from bad families got adopted by the locals. They bring their own lunch, and we encourage them to share with each other. We needn’t worry much about allergies, after all, since magicals are mostly immune to them.”

“Allergies?”

“Umm. Bad reaction to something, like specific foodstuffs or weathers or something else like pollen. Huff. I got to read _so much_ about those and other things before Andy would let me sign for the opening of this school….”

“Umm, what about if, and I’m just talking about worst-case what-ifs here, Harry, but what if somebody Polyjuiced himself or herself as a student and sneaks in with some dark item or even… poison?”

“Erh….”

“I think it is why we are here, partially, Susan Bones. We can help Harry make his school safer for everyone.”

“Call me Susan, Luna. For the last time….”

“You always say ‘for the last time’. And then you say that again.”

I can’t help it. I burst out laughing, after spying the innocent look on Lunas face and the exasperated one on Susan’s.

“’For the last time’, Luna, it’s not _my_ school but the Residents’.” I quirk a smile at Susan and a broad wink at Luna… and then hastily vacate the porch of the house-turned-school, as Susan mock chases me with fists raised.

It’s a very interesting chase… especially since my other guests soon run after me… followed by a determined Teddy… followed by the students who celebrate Christmas here because of one reason or another.

Fun, though.


	6. Hermione Time

Disclaimer for: the name and placement of the graveyard, since I have never been to Melbourne and only searched on Google

Warning for: minor character death

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 20th February 2002

“Harry… would you spare some time? I mean, a week or so? I…. Well, my parents are still in Australia, and I broke up with Ron before my training started, and I’ve got nobody else, and–.”

“Mione.”

“–You’ve got training to track down a person, even in the mundane world, and I checked, and Chief Auror Robards said you’ve got some accumulated leave time since you didn’t take it since you joined as a full Auror, and you could even take a sabbatical without jeopardising your accumulated leave time–.”

“Mione.”

“–And the latter would be good because I wouldn’t want you sacrificing yourself like that, and Chief Auror Robards agreed with me, so now–.”

“ _Mione_.”

“Huh. Yes?”

“ _Breathe_.”

“Harry! I’m serious!”

“Me, too, Mione. So _breathe_ , and explain _slowly_ , including why you didn’t ask before.”

And with that, Hermione, whose hair is frizzier than ever this afternoon, slumps into the armchair opposite me in the receiving room beside the entry hall.

“Honestly, I forgot,” she admits in a tiny voice, with her eyes firmly stuck on her robe-covered lap. “I…. The training wasn’t harsh. I had time. But there were so many new things to be discovered….”

I swallow back my twinge of envy, anger and acerbic response of, “Well, now I see why you’d rather get your parents out of the way,” and continue to listen as she scates round her oath of secrecy as an Unspeakable to tell me what she’s been doing these four years or so.

“Things are calming down there, now, so I’ve got time, and Ron broke up with me since I had little time for him all these years, and… well… I’ve been missing my parents for so long already,” she finishes plaintively. “I…. They’ll be _so_ angry with me, and I don’t look forward to that, but I miss them _so much_.”

I let out a heavy, heavy sigh. I shan’t make myself _yet again_ the reason why Hermione’s separated from her parents. But Andy’d rail at me if I got nothing from this, or any stipulation for my help. So, “Promise me you’ll do your best to be close to your parents if we find them? I know it’s not my business, but… well, it won’t be easy, finding them, in the first place, so I don’t want the effort to go to waste.” Damn. The words leave a bitter aftertaste on my tongue.

But she beams at me, all the same.

Oh, well.

Springvale Botanical Cemetery, 28th February 2002

I stand silently in front of the graves of Wendell and Monica Wilkins, as Hermione sobs hard into my chest and clutches me close.

Eight days. We were searching for eight days, using all the connections, influence and favours that we accumulated, only to find that we are more than a month too late.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger died on the first of January this year, killed on the spot by a drunk driver, as they walked on the side of a road after an overnight New Years party with their friends. These graves are the last hard evidence that neither of us can deny.

I even cast a spell to identify time of death on the bodies that we briefly excavated, and Hermione cast a spell to identify that they are truly human remains, instead of transfigured pieces.

And the results only made the evidence more unshakable.

I am responsible for yet another wrecked family, directly or not.


	7. My People, My Family

Credit to: again, somebody who came up with the nickname “Much-Poshly” for Justin Finch-Fletchley, and please tell me if you know who the author is, thanks

Warning for: mild swearing

Black Sanctuary, 31st July 2002

“Welcome to Black Sanctuary, Mione.”

“Ooh, it’s a beautiful place, Harry.”

“The people who live here take well care of the place. It’s their home, after all.”

“So the house got extended inside, I suppose?”

“Huh?”

“The place this big, Harry, I doubt only a few people can take care of it, let alone this well, even if they use magic, or house-elves, but the house isn’t that big. I mean, it’s not big enough to house… thirty people, at least, without them bunking with each other all the time. There are lots of windows that I can see, yes, but many of them don’t seem to lead to bedrooms.”

“Huh.”

“Just ‘huh’?”

“Yes, that. – Remember, Mione, keep an open mind, and don’t break your oath. If the people who live here want to invite you in, it’s their decision, not mine, not yours.”

But you’re the owner of this place….”

I raise an eyebrow and regard her silently.

Hermione opens her mouth, closes it again after a beat, flushes and looks away.

“They are _people_ , Mione,” I tell her, fiercely but in a low tone. “If they want to tell you about themselves, it’s their decision. If they want to invite you in, it’s their decision. All that I’ll do is inviting you _to the house_ , like I planned to, and the party will be held there, anyway. So please respect them, and please respect me by not harassing them. I swore to protect them, after all.”

Then I deliberately lighten my tone, quirking a teasing smile at her in the meantime. “’Sides, I doubt you’d like to leave the library once I show you that. The first owner of this place collected interesting manuscripts that the library at Grimmauld Place doesn’t have.”

She huffs out a breath, frowns, but soon enough a smile creeps reluctantly to her face. Success.

“Well, now,” I grin, then lob a bouncy ball I’ve just conjured behind my back at her head.

It hits, and bounces.

And she runs after me, in no time at all, squealing with quite-apparent exasperation.

Now, isn’t it a good beginning for a good birthday party?

Black Sanctuary, 25th December 2002

“Your family is growing, Harry,” Luna smiles as she looks round, perhaps noticing Hermione mingling with a few newly adopted children near the house.

I guide her away from the porch – the designated Portkey area – and smile back at her. “It is, isn’t it? It’s always been my dream, you know.”

Her smile turns more radiant. I think mine reciprocates very well.

Finch-Fletchley Residence, 12th March 2003

“Thank you for nudging me to study overseas, Potter,” Justin begins, as he invites me to sit on the couch across from him. “I found a healer in the United States who is also a qualified mundane doctor. I finished my healer training there and tested out many of the theoritical classes for my mundane degree. I’m a full doctor in both worlds, now.”

“Umm, you’re welcome?” I hazard a response, fighting an urge to scratch my head to show my confusion more blatantly.

He chuckles. “Never good with small talks, are you?” he smiles.

“Nope. Never,” I agree, relieved to be certain again. “Not about to change, too, I think. I sort of hate it.”

He _grins_ , then. Justin Much-Poshly, _grinning_.

I grin my goofiest back at him. “So, you going to bring me touring London again, then?”

He _laughs_. Miracles.

“I don’t think the staff at Harrods really knew what to do with you,” he says then, mock sternly. “You proclaimed yourself Lord Black, with ring and all, and then you acted worse than a firsty at Honeydukes.”

I give him my best “Who? Me?” look.

He gives me a thaumaturgic bop on the nose.

My. He’s become much more relaxed, overseas.

I tell him just that.

He grins ruefully. “I was the subject of hazing until I changed a little.”

“Ah.” I put on my best attempt at a wise look.

He bops my nose again and goes into a second bout of laughter, so maybe the attempt looks more like I’m fighting against constipation.

The imagined look makes me crack up, too.

“Seriously, though,” he sighs, when we’ve recovered ourselves, “what did you want to talk about? I saw nothing wrong with you, physically… except if you’re really constipated?”

I do the mature thing of sticking my tongue out at him.

He bops my nose for the third time. “Behave, Potter, or I’ll make myself your personal physician and make you attend a most unpleasant examination.”

I scrunch my poor nose up and point out that he threatened a similar thing once with no avail. “But it isn’t a bad idea,” I continue before he can retaliate… or bop my nose again. “Don’t tell anybody, but I’m opening a school. Mostly for Muggleborn, though. So, if you can, maybe you might want to work part-time there? It’s not easy, to find a good doctor that the parents will trust but also know about magic _and_ how to treat magical injuries.”

It kills the humorous mood, all right.

Justin sighs again, heavily this time, and slumps against the back of the couch he’s seated on. “I heard about Hogwarts,” he mutters. “So it’s all true, then? It’s receiving only Pureblood and Halfblood, now?”

“The older Muggleborn are there. Some of them, at least,” I nod. “But the younger ones… no.”

He closes his eyes and seems to think hard for a long moment. Then, looking right into my eyes, he asks, “Aren’t we just widening the segregation, by doing this?”

_We_. All right. He’s hooked. Now, I just need to convince him… while I’m not so convinced, myself.

I tell him a short, edited version of the history of Black Sanctuary, in the end. I even tell him that it is a short, edited version, and warn him not to dig deeper unless the people there are willing to share more with him.

Well, at least he says yes to my proposal… after hours of talking. He’s willing to work immediately, too. As in, _tomorrow_.

The parents will be happy. The students won’t. He’s ordering a mandatory medical check-up for the latters, after all.

Unfortunately, he _does_ finagle himself a position as my personal physician, and immediately dictates a medical check-up _for me_ with the time slot _before the students_.

Bugger.


	8. Torn Away

Warnings for: major character deaths, semi-graphic violence

British Auror Office, 2nd May 2003

I stare numbly at the brief, rushed letter laid on my desk, which I have read numerous times with little comprehension.

**Harry,**  
**Somebody put me under Imperius. I don’t know whom. He was hooded and masked. Male though. He forbids me from speaking to anybody about this, so I’m writing to you. He wanted me to wait and then kill Andy and Teddy and you. I’m trying to throw it off again. I did it once and he beat me. I hope I can do it again. But be sure to guard yourself and your family, Harry. So sorry.**  
**Hannah**

I feel… nothing.

The letter arrived this morning on my desk. And this morning, _too_ , an Auror team was dispatched to investigate _the deaths of Andromeda Tonks and Theodore Lupin at Diagon Alley_ , said to be killed by a knife to the chest _by Hannah Abbot_ by eye witnesses, before _she killed herself with the same knife_.

I can’t think. I can’t feel.

Somebody is suddenly seated across from me. Brown hair, brown eyes. Just as numb.

` _He lost his future,_ ` is the first thought that is able to penetrate the numbness inside my skull, an eternity after. ` _I lost my family. He lost his future. Teddy. Hannah. Teddy. Hannah. My family. His future. Andy. She’s free. I’m lost._ `

I stand up on weak, shaky legs, and so does the other person. ` _Familiar. Comfortable. Gentle. Silent. Almost-brother._ `

I skirt the desk, using its edges as my crutch, and so does he.

We meet on the middle, and cling to each other. Dried eyed. Too numb for tears.

` _Neville,_ ` my mind whispers.

Shell Cottage, 3rd May 2003

“Harry?”

“Yes, it’s me, Bill. Could I come in?”

“I thought you were…. I heard the news, Harry. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Bill.”

“Aren’t you…. Why are you here? Don’t mistake me, I’m glad that you aren’t alone at home right now, it’s never good when in… this situation, but… why are you here? Does the Auror Corps need something from me?”

I let out a short, bitter chuckle. “I’m quitting the job, Bill,” I confess. “But it’s not why I came.”

I rake a hand through my hair, then continue more diffidently. “So sorry, we rarely chatted, before this. I don’t even know if you picked your old job back up….”

Bill, seated beside me on the couch, pats my knee. “No mind, Harry,” he says. “The war…. It took much from us. From _you_. And we took different ways to recover.” He looks wistfully round his neat little living-room, then, and sighs. “The goblins nearly kicked me out of Gringotts because of the three of you. But then Missus Tonks smoothed things over, and I got my desk job again, though in a lower position. I’m applying for a field job again, since Victoire is five, now.”

“Oh,” I mumble. “Sorry.”

He gives me a stern eye, for that. “I said, no mind, Harry. Missus Tonks smoothed it over. Besides, the goblins knew very well that what you did was for the war effort. They didn’t want to get overrun by the Death Eaters just like you and I. They just couldn’t accept that a human saved them, indirectly.”

I snort. He grins a little.

“Now, why are you here?” He pokes at my knee with a finger. “You aren’t fighting with Ron again, aren’t you?”

It’s my turn to sigh.

Shaking my head, I confess, “We haven’t been in contact, too, aside from the shared flat. He’s busy practising with the Cannons when he’s not on duty, while I need to take care of the estates and my own studies. Our teams don’t often share the same shifts, too.”

Then, before we can fall further into small talks, I blurt out, “Bill, would you take me up as your apprentice in curse-breaking? I…. Andy didn’t approve of it, more than being an Auror, but….” I choke into silence. ` _But Andy isn’t here any longer, and I need something – **anything** – to occupy myself to keep from being mad,_` is what I want to say, but the words refuse to come out.

He regards me silently, seriously, his eyes sharp. I fidget under his gaze, but still don’t manage to say anything else.

And then, abruptly, he asks back, “Do you know what the Potters usually specialise in, aside from potions?”

I shrug.

“It’s warding and enchanting, Harry,” he tells me. “They’ve got specialty in moulding spells and wards together so everything’s seamless. You can defeat their enchantments and wards only by brute force, like Fiendfyre on the Potter Manor. You should go hunt down some journals of your ancestors and learn from them. I can’t teach you that. It’s your family magic. I can teach you how to define and unravel wards and curses, but the Potters are rumoured to have applied a more intuitive way on those, too, so I don’t know how good will it do you if you learn it from me.”

Harold Potter. So it’s why Andromeda Black the First wanted to marry Harold Potter the Second. It’s the warding, and enchantments, and… moulding, _including moulding people to do your bidding_. What a steep, slippery slope.

I slump against the fluffy back of the couch.

Bill pokes at my knee again. “Don’t try anything yet, Harry,” he warns. “Just go read the journals, and I’ll supervise your first try. I’ll even swear an oath not to tell anybody about how you’re doing things, in case I stumble on it. But let yourself mourn, now, and go find your feet again.”

“We mourned Fred, Harry, _for a year_. At least give yourself a week to mourn Andy and Teddy,” he snaps when I open my mouth, about to say no.

My mouth clicks shut.

I look away.

He sighs, stands up, drags me to my feet, and hugs me close.

“I don’t know you much, Harry,” he murmurs gently into my hair, “but Ron talked much about you, and I’ve got eyes to see. You prize family above all, and your family is gone, now. You must accept it, but it doesn’t mean you just put it aside. They deserve to be remembered, but how can you remember them if you run away from their memories?” His breath hitches, but then he forges on, “I did that, too, about Fred. Fleur helped me. Trust me, Harry, it only hurts at first.”

And I do trust him, at least in this.

So, for the first time since I got the news yesterday, I let go.


	9. The Rescue

Warnings for: mild swearing, nudity, torture, past semi-graphic violence

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 31st October 2003

“Harry, can we talk? There’s something I need you to look at.” Hermione sounds so rattled on the phone.

I yawn. “So early, Mione?” I grumble, but dutifully stretch and get out of the bed. “No longer an Auror, you know. Maybe you should ask Ron?” Because neither I, nor Neville, nor Susan work in the Ministry, after that fateful day, after they – _even Kingsley_ – ruled the triple-death case close, despite the evidence of Hannah’s letter.

“Time-sensitive, Harry,” she hisses, angry and impatient. “If you want to help me save him, move, _now_.”

The urgency filters through, first.

And then the words register.

“Shite,” I mutter, successfully woken up without needing a strong cup of warm tea. Summoning my individual field gear from my Auror days with a wandless Achio, I don it hastily from bottom to top while pinning the mobile phone – Hermione’s birthday gift for me – between my left cheek and shoulder. “Is it Ron? Neville? Terry? Justin? Zabini? Where are you? What should I bring?”

She huffs. “Would you still come if I said he’s a stranger?” she lets out at last, after an uneasy pause, her voice suddenly small and weak. “This might mean the end of my career, too. But I just… can’t. Not after what happened to Mum and Dad.”

“Oh.” My heart slides down to my guts in the form of an ice cube, it feels. “Oh. All right. Where are you, now? We can talk about your options later. I want to see you safe, first.” Because I know _very well_ what a vengeful Ministry of Magic would do to the person or people that they despise or feel slighted about.

Some Muggleborn have never been found after they were taken by Umbridge’s goons in nineteen-ninety-eight, case in point.

Her answer of, “In Anthony’s bookstore, Harry. See you at the phone booth,” doesn’t mollify me any.

And then she indirectly asks me to plan for extraction and unconventional battle, before telling me that she _also_ called Justin to come and bring his complete – mundane _and_ magical – kit as unobtrusively as he can.

My poor, flash-frozen heart plops to my toes.

A fighter. A doctor. Both in full gear. Needed secretly. Immediately. By an Unspeakable. For a morally grey reason.

Mione, what did you get yourself into, now?

But I comply, nonetheless. I can’t take the chance that she might be in grave danger. Not after… that day.

Department of Mysteries of British Ministry of Magic, 31st October 2003

There’s a large, powerfully built dark-skinned man in the room that Hermione said is “Experiment Room 3 Level 5.”

He is naked and strapped spread-eagle to a metal table in the middle of the room by his head, wrists, elbows, knees and ankles.

And he is screaming his head off under a double dose of Cruciatus, held by a pair of Unspeakables who stand side by side with each other opposite the door and wear a strange helmet with goggles each.

“Blimey,” Justin breathes, horrified, audible to me despite the screams of the poor sod on the, table as we are linked by the set of family-bound cloaking charms that Andromeda Black the First and her husband invented centuries ago, which includes a long-distance communication feature. “Granger, tell me you never participated in anything like this before now?” He sounds nauseated and moments away from physical shock.

No wonder. Me, too. And Hermione, who is making sure of our egress point on the far end of the hallway, tops it with an about-to-cry layer as she replies with a soft, “Never.”

“All right,” I cut through the burgeoning nervous chatter, my own voice wavering. “Mione, be ready. We need a big distraction and I have it, but you must defend us while Justin and I get the man. Sorry, but I don’t think you can come back to this place after this. Too dangerous.”

“Not that easy,” my fellow rescuer warns, his tone sicker than before. “Look. Blood, _everywhere_. I think…. I think he got them, once, or one of them, on the neck, with one of the straps. Arterial blood sprays everywhere.”

“And then they doubled on the torture,” I finish for him. “Damn. He won’t trust us if we keep him tied up, but we can’t risk friendly fire.”

“Whatever you do, do it quick,” Hermione cuts in sharply, tensely. “People are coming. I think they detected your presences, although we’re otherwise invisible. I said level five, didn’t I? It’s the highest security.”

“No, you didn’t explain, and no, this set also cloaks our magical signatures,” I mutter, my heart pounding, while my eyes roam wildly round the torch-lit room. “I think they’re just checking.”

Even so, what shall we do? I didn’t prepare for this eventuality – that the rescuee would be so strong yet so tortured, a danger not only to himself but also to us, the rescuers.

Because the blood spatters don’t lie. They’re indeed _everywhere_ , now that Justin’s pointed it out to me. The specs blend so well with the dancing shadows created by the torches.

Nobody can convince me that it’s just some macabre decoration in tandem with the torch-lit ambience.

More than one person died here.

And, again, we’re supposed to save the possible killer.

Whose screams have gone noticeably hoarser and weaker, by now.

Oh, damn.

“Justin, you think he’s safe to be sedated?”

“He mightn’t wake up again.”

“Damn. I don’t want him waking up into killing mode, too. All right, I don’t know if we can knock out the Unspeakables magically, but can you do it the Muggle way?”

“I’m not a veterinarian, Potter.”

“Huh?”

“You were referring to tranquiliser gun. It’s to sedate wild animals.”

“All right…. Mione, does the uniform include air filter?”

“No, Harry.”

“Can you put a Bubblehead just on your nose and mouth?”

“I can.”

“Justin?”

“Yes.”

“All right….” I take a deep breath.

And regret it right afterwards, as the mingled smells of old and new blood, bodily wastes, torch smoke and dank underground room fill my lungs.

I feel unclean, just by breathing.

“All right,” I try again. “I’ve got George’s special dungbomb grenades, here, and… others. But hopefully I won’t have to make use of them. George can be in big trouble. So, Justin, you think you can unstrap our target quickly?”

“All right, I’ll put a portable swamp under those Unspeakables and treat them extra with double dose of the grenade,” I continue on his affirmation. “I want you to unstrap him at the same time. Gouge the table and bring the straps along if you think it’s speedier. But please don’t hurt him if you can while doing that, or he’ll think you’re one of his torturers.” At least, I’d think so if I were that poor man, and I do have first-hand experienced of being _Crucioed_ in the tender age of fourteen.

“I’ve got a portable flat with me,” I hasten on, as one of my tripwires at the distance got triggered with a boom. “Going to enlarge the trunk, now. Drop him in there when you’re done, don’t forget to cushion him, and–.”

“Harry, time!” Hermione squeaks, followed right after by her furious spell-chains.

Justin and I curse in unison and dive into the room. No time for a Bubblehead. We just need to hold our breaths.

But apparently Justin forgets to hold his breath, or can’t, because, right after I’m finished with the Unspeakables in the room, I find him nearly unconscious beside the spasming rescuee.

I drop them both into the portable flat.

I do the same with Hermione, after summoning her away from a Blood-Boiling Curse, as I run past her station at the end of the hall.

Now, where’s the exit?


	10. The Rescuee, Part 1

Warnings for: aftermath of torture, nudity, reference to rape/non-con

Dialogue marker: underlined dialogue for parseltongue

Black Lodge, 31st October 2003

I Portkeyed from the Ministry’s visitor’s entrance to a secluded spot on one of the piers in Blackpool, thankful that I brought it and a few of its getaway fellows with me. A briefly stolen boat brought me into the morning fog and, after setting timed Banishing and Signature-Scrubbing Charms to return it to where I had found it, took a second Portkey to Norway.

And here I am: on the porch of a “small” Black property deep in the mountainous pinewoods hundreds of miles away from my starting point, barely five minutes after I burst out of the modified phone booth that hides the visitor’s entrance to the Ministry, and about ten minutes after I made a mad dash out of the Department of Mysteries.

I hope Justin and our rescuee are all right, and Hermione won’t be too mad at me.

Somewhat trepidatiously, I fish out the portable-flat trunk out of my pocket, enlarge it, put a shield in front of my face, lift the lid a little, and peek down into the flat.

Hermione immediately stands below it and glares up the ladder at me.

“Couldn’t chance it,” I defend myself. “How’s Justin and the man?”

She scowls, but thankfully answers, however grudgingly, “They’re good enough. Finch-Fletchley is awake. Threw up a little but otherwise good enough. The man’s–” her face crumples, entirely distraught “–he’s still spasming, though not screaming anymore. I renewed your Cushioning Charm on him. It’ll last perhaps five more minutes.”

I wince. Five minutes. For an enduring spell like a Cushioning Charm, it means the charm is constantly and enthusiastically made use of by the person or thing being charmed. And, for the poor man, it means he’s still in a situation as bad as before, just not screaming anymore… which is _worse_ in my book, because it might mean his throat giving out, or his energy, or… _worse_.

“I’m coming down now,” I tell her and yank the lid fully open.

“No!” she hisses, alarmed. “Where are you? It’ll take time! You must find a safe place first and–.”

“I’m at a Black property, Mione,” I cut in impatiently. “All right, I’ll put the trunk inside the house, but I’m coming down there next, no argument.”

I do just that, while calling out for any Black elves who might be stationed here.

Three pop in, just as I park the portable-flat trunk in the entrance room beside the front door.

“Guard this trunk,” I tell the left-most one before any of them can say anything, fearing that I’m running out of time to at least try to soothe our rescuee before the end. “If you see a man with black skin, don’t let him out unless I tell you.” Turning to the middle one next, I tell… her?… to prepare the house for four people.

“You come down with me and help me or Justin with things,” I tell the right-most elf, last.

Damn. I’m feeling guilty already for ordering them so succinctly, without even an attempt to know their names. But there’s no time!

Portable Flat at Black Lodge, 31st October 2003

I jump into the trunk without use of the ladder, slowing myself down in the last split-second with a wandless Cushioning Charm that sees me bounce a few times as I rush away from the opening.

It’s not hard to find the three people that I dropped in here while in the Department of Mysteries. They need my authorisation to move in deeper than the entrance room, after all, and one of them is incapacitated, unable to move anywhere under his own feet.

Justin is woozily trying to stand, using one of the walls as leverage. “Just sit down and drink a stomach soother, Justin,” I shake my head. “You can’t treat him while you yourself need treating.”

“What can I do, Harry?” Hermione’s standing wringing her hands beside the spasming, gasping and whimpering form of the man we rescued… whom now I can see has a strange golden tattoo on his forehead. “There’s nothing here, just walls.”

I shake my head again, as I levitate our rescuee before me. “Haven’t keyed you in yet. Later. Go help Justin, Mione. Holler if both of you want anything that the house-elves can’t provide. Ask for help from a house-elf if you need something, otherwise.”

I dive past the wards that separate the entrance room from the rest of the flat, then, jogging right to the bathroom, past the potions lab, kitchen and storeroom.

Damn. I wish I put my bedroom and bathroom near the entrance.

But then, I put wards round that place for a good reason, namely my stupid luck.

“Hold on,” I beg the man, as I lower him onto the tiled floor of the shower area. “You’re safe. We’re safe. Hold on.” I enlarge the area to fit his large, hulking frame, then belatedly warm and cushion the floor to hopefully make him more comfortable. “I’m going to clean you up, all right? You’ll feel comfier, after that.”

“Introduce him slowly to the water, Potter,” Justin’s voice suddenly sounds in my ear.

I flinch. I forgot that we’re still cloaked and connected to each other. It’s a miracle that the house-elves appeared when I called. They shouldn’t have been able to hear me, when I’m fully cloaked like this.

“All right. All right,” I mutter, while willing our cloaking defence to partially fade, so that the house-elves and this man can hear and see us. “All right.” I repeat my words to our rescuee as I run the water off to the side through my hand, testing its pressure and temperature. “All right. Here we go. – Oh.”

The man flinches weakly away from my bare hand, which happens to land on his hip. “Oh. Oh.”

I feel sick, even sicker than before.

“What, Harry?” Hermione squeaks, distressed. “Come on. Let me through. Let me help.”

The man flinches again, even tries to scoot away without avail judging from the twitches on his other side farther from me, when he hears her voice.

He didn’t flinch, when he heard my voice before this.

“Mione,” I take a ragged breath, “we are partially decloaked, now. He can hear you. Please don’t speak if there’s nothing quite urgent, for now. Female voice makes him anxious. We’ll talk, later.”

“Oh.” Hermione sounds horrified, and sick. Smart girl, unfortunately in this case.

I work without any interruption from anybody, not even from our rescuee, after that, while I keep a running commentary on what I’m doing, more for the benefit of our rescuee than anything else.

And then I interrupt myself, when I’m about to clean his midriff.

The centre of the midriff is twitching on its own.

As if there’s something moving under the skin.

And there’s indeed an opening there, X-shaped.

Gingerly, I touch the side of the opening, then press it a little.

The movements underneath becomes more frantic, and the man groans.

I flinch back as if scalded. “Sorry.”

A small head peeks out of the opening before I can say or do anything else. It looks like the cross between a snake, an eel, and an oversized caterpillar, with bleary, tiny red eyes.

It looks harmless, like a baby. But it freaks me out.

An oversized _maggot_ , coming out of _a living person’s stomach_.

“Hey, who are you?” I blurt out.

And it _answers_ , in a tiny squeak that my mind interprets as traumatic fear.

Oh. I was speaking Parseltongue, apparently. So this might be a baby snake.

A baby snake in a human’s stomach.

Ewwww.


	11. The Rescuee, Part 2

Warning for: aftermath of torture

Black Lodge, 31st October 2003

“How’s he, Justin?”

“More or less stable, Potter. You did good, making him more comfortable.”

“Nice! Did you do something for the shakes? Potions, maybe?”

“Couldn’t. He’s human enough, but… not quite.”

“Like a Veela? Or a werewolf?”

“More like a werewolf. – Don’t look at me like that. I got to examine a willing subject for my healing mastery. You are not the only one who liked Professor Lupin, you know. I want to find a cure someday. – Anyway, his blood is… odd. He looks human enough, except for that snake in a pouch… and you’ll pay for that, Potter. You could’ve told me beforehand. But _anyway_ , he looks human, but his bloodwork isn’t quite human, and overall he seems sturdier than an ordinary human, even a magical one.”

I wave an impatient hand before myself, while peeking an eye into the bedroom… and seeing our rescuee _still_ lying close-eyed and trembling slightly in the bed, mostly covered by a thick blanket.

Justin glares at me, but I go on anyway, “So no potions? What about healing spells?”

He huffs and cross his arms in front of his chest. “No need to ask that,” he grumbles. “He got _a little_ better because of the spells.”

I grin weakly at him. “But you said it’s because of my good job.”

I slip into the room before his fist manages to land on my shoulder.

I take a seat on a conjured stool near the foot of the bed and lay my upper half on the bed above the blanket. Supporting my head up with elbows on the bed and chin in my hands, I scrutinise our poor rescuee, thoughts running helter-skelter in my mind.

Who is he? Why’s the baby snake in his belly? Before I came here to talk to Justin and see this man, Hermione told me that the Unspeakables had found him while he and his men had been trying to raid a small magical village deep in Scottish highlands, and he’d been captured while apparently trying to _sabotage his own mission_ , so why did he do that? Where are his friends? Were they attempting to get him back? Are they going to come here?

There’s no evidence of vehicles, Portkeys and the like, and no magic either, Hermione said, so maybe no tracking him here, but the Unspeakables found _strange weapons_ instead – weapons unknown to the mundane and magical alike… so is this man and his friends aliens? If magic and wizards are true, why not aliens? But why were aliens trying to raid _humans_? For medical experiments? For some slave labour? It can’t be for expertise in something, can it?

I fiddle with a patch of bunched-up blanket as my thoughts run round and round and round.

And then I notice that a nearby patch is _also_ moving, independent of my own movements.

I blink, and blink again.

Now I notice that the man’s eyes are open, though not fully, and rather blearily.

“Oh,” I murmur, bemused. “Hello. You’re awake, now? Want me to prop you up?”

Something shifts again under the blanket nearby. Judging from the contour visible on the blanket, it’s a hand. So, thinking that he wants some human contact, I grasp it.

He grasps it back, strongly but spasmodically, hampered only by the thick layer of the blanket that separates our hands from each other.

“Hello,” I begin again, smiling, as I transfer my bum to the edge of the bed and dismiss my conjured stool. “Feeling better, now? Want me to give you some water?”

He remains silent, but his grasp on my hand remains strong, if trembling, too. Maybe he can’t speak, or he doesn’t understand me, or his mind is too preoccupied with the pain. I can only hope that he’s not too broken from the horrible, horrible ordeal he went through.

And all, after he tried to _save_ some witches and wizards from becoming alien toys. Ungrateful sods.

Well, I’m not one to talk much, usually, but if he draws comfort from human voices that don’t precede pain for him….

I talk, and talk, and talk, softly, about everything that I can think of that is not also a closely guarded secret, with inflections that invite him to participate but don’t push.

I wish I had such a company, myself, when I got bedridden, especially when I was small.


	12. Revelations

Warning for: reference to unethical medical experiments

Black Lodge, 1st November 2003

“What did you do to the man, Potter? Sing him magical lullabies?”

“Just talking.”

“You’ve got some magical voice, then.”

I snort while cramming the last of my breakfast toast into my mouth. “Just talking, _Much-Poshly_ ,” I reiterate. “Now, how’s he, really?”

“Much better, as you can guess,” he shrugs. “Not quite out of danger yet, but much better from when we got him out. Don’t think you need me here, actually, ‘sept for some monitoring that you yourself can do. Wanted to examine him more, but he seems to fear the scanning spells. I think he got experimented on, before we got him out, so he learnt to brace up when someone scanned him. Just another notch against the Unspeakables, I suppose.”

Our eyes are inevitably drawn to the third person at the dining table, then, the only Unspeakable – or maybe, _hopefully_ , former Unspeakable – in the vicinity, who doesn’t seem to have eaten anything, all too focused on playing with the single link of sausage laid on her nearly pristine plate.

Hermione shrinks smaller under our silent regard and lets go of her fork, her hands shaking.

“Mione?” I frown.

“What’s wrong with you, Granger?” Justin adds. “Feeling guilty for what others did?”

I send the tip of his nose a small Stinging Hex.

He retaliates.

“You’re one to talk, Potter,” he drawls. “It’s for you, too. Heard from Susan you tried to put the world on your shoulders or something.”

He winces, then, and rubs his nose. But I didn’t do anything just now!

“…Oh.” My eyes meet with Hermione’s wet ones, briefly, before they focus their best glaring might on Justin. “Oh. Mione? What….”

“I… don’t feel guilty for _them_ ,” she grits out, her voice equally wet and her tone wavering. “I…. If they can do it to him, I don’t want to know _or find out_ what they can do to _me_.”

“But you’re their colleague,” I point out, bemused. “Not that I want you to go back to them, myself, but… they’re your colleagues.”

“No,” she mumbles, looking down at her plate again. “No. I’m a mudblood, even to them. I’m locked out of their best researches and findings.”

Guilt _does_ surface on her countenance, then, before it settles into a stubborn, determined look so familiar to me.

“Mione?” I prod warily. “What did you do there?”

She slumps low, as if about to slide under the table.

“Mione.” I’m alarmed, now. Justin, seated at an angle to us at the round table, pushes back his chair, looking even more alarmed than I am.

“I bonded with someone whom they _also_ experimented on,” she bursts out, at last.

Justin and I flinch and look wide-eyed at each other.

“What… did you mean, Mione?” I get out, at last, after raising an eyebrow to Justin’s pointed look at me – that lazy git. “Bonded? Like to a house-elf?”

She shakes her head. “Almost like you and Tom Riddle, Harry,” she says in a small voice.

I suck in a sharp breath and clutch at the edge of the wooden table as if to a lifeline. – Voldemort! Bonded like me and _Voldemort_! And she did it _willingly_?!

Then, unable to hold it in any longer, I explode.

“You _gave yourself_ to a _parasite_ , Hermione?! Did you _realise_ what you did? I _died_ just so that I could be rid of Voldemort. And now you _let a parasite in_ yourself? Where did your common sense go?”

She stands up abruptly. A sob rings out, accompanied by the clattering of the chair toppling down. She flees the dining room, then, without any more words.

I bury my face in my hands, trying not to cry, myself. My breakfast has gone back up, it feels, pooling burningly at the back of my throat.

“I’ll… be in my room,” Justin offers, before his chair scrapes back further from the table and his rubber-soled shoes pad farther and farther away on the wooden floor.

I break down, at last, when no sound is audible but for my own ragged breaths and pounding heart.

I don’t know how long I cry – for Hermione, for what I said to her, for what might happen to her next.

I go to our rescuee’s room – the rescuee who _isn’t_ a parasite when my tears are spent, instead of to my own room or hers or anywhere else. I just… don’t want to be alone, right now, but I don’t want to see her _yet_ or Justin.

The man opens his eyes when I knock at the open door. He’s still covered with a thick blanket up to his chin, but he looks much more alert, now, and not so tense anymore.

“Hello,” I greet him listlessly, while plopping my bum on the edge of the bed.

He blinks.

I give him a wan smile. “My friend said you’re better, now. Good to hear.”

He blinks again… and looks questioningly at me – or rather, my face, it seems, judging from his roaming eyes.

I flush. I didn’t think of cleaning my face, first, before coming here. “I… was just… talking, to a friend. Found something bad.”

I look away and down. – If the man was in such a bad situation when we got to him, how was Hermione’s personal rescuee doing when she got to it? Did Hermione just pick it up and bond it to her, to keep it alive? Can they be detached from each other, now? When did she rescue it, anyway? Is it too late already for them to be separated from each other? Or has it been too late since the bonding happened, in the first place? What would separation do to Hermione if they’re detached from each other, anyway?

I stir only when the blanket shifts and something – the man’s hand, again, it feels – touches my hand that I’ve planted on the bed.

“Sorry,” I mumble, looking back up and grasping the offered hand. “I… lost…. I was lost in thought. I’m all right, really.”

His hand squeezes mine a little, tremblingly, but still warm and strong despite it. I repay him with another wan smile. “I’m all right, really,” I reiterate, though I don’t know whether it’s to convince him or myself.

He blinks… and looks vaguely doubtful.

I laugh a little, reluctantly. “Either you can understand me, or just my tone, and doubt me anyway.”

I doubt that he can understand English, as a faintly wondering countenance is plastered firmly on his face whenever I talk, but teasing him a little feels… nice.

He doesn’t blink in response to this latest chatter of mine, but the look in his eyes – just as black in colour as his skin – turns warmer, more approving.

I grin weakly and squeeze his hand. “Thank you,” I tell him, with all the gratitude that I can muster. “I’m feeling better, now.”

And I _do_ feel better. This conversation, as limited as it is, is still _a conversation_ , and I’m having it with someone who demands nothing from me _and_ never knew me before.

It’s like having a friend, as Luna once said.

And I make _this_ friend on my own terms.

What a wonderful novelty.


	13. Alternative Healing from an Alternative Source

Warnings for: past abuse on a prisoner, aftermath of torture, reference to rape/non-con

Chapter notes: There are a few Rey-verse elements in this. Depending on where the muse wants to go, this story might end up fusioned a little with Marvel Thor universe.

Zabini Residence, 1st November 2003

“Potter.”

“Zabini.”

“…”

“Umm, what do you do, now, if I might ask?”

“This and that.”

“Huff. Does ‘this and that’ include healing?”

“Maybe.”

“”Alternative healing?”

“Maybe.”

“Damn it, Zabini. I need some help.”

“Yes?”

“You’re worse than my friend, and he can’t talk.”

“Oh?”

I don’t know whether to curse again, stomp my foot like a five-year-old, send a Stinging Hex to the prat, or give up altogether. But since I’m a guest here under my own request to see them immediately, and Luna did recommend them when I asked her before coming here, and I _do_ need medical help for my current guest from non-mainstream sources, I hold back from expressing my exasperation in any way.

Therefore, after a deep breath, in my level-most tone, and while omitting some dangerous details, I _just_ start to explain my guest’s condition and Justin’s inability to treat him through the magical and mundane ways, ignoring the prat’s politely _dis_ interested manner.

They regard me silently for a long, long moment, then.

I suppose I should be thankful to my guest back at Black Lodge, as he is prone to long, thoughtful stares at me, too, today. I’m no longer prone to fidgeting under such gaze, now, neither do I feel the urge to prompt for an immediate reply just to fill in the silence and direct the attention away from me.

The prat seems to realise that, presently, as their eyes hold a faint note of surprise. Something that I would’ve missed if I weren’t used to picking up the subtlest movements and moods of my guest these two days, in order to accommodate his needs and continue talking with him.

I still can’t prevent myself from putting forth a retaliation as much and as swiftly as I get it, though.

I cock an eyebrow up at him, like I sometimes saw my guest doing the longer we conversed.

And, unexpectedly, _unbelievably_ , the prat _laughs_ in response.

I gape, ruining the posture, but I can’t help it! _Blaise Zabini_ , _Laughing_. What is the world coming to?

I can’t help laughing, too, though rather bitterly, when they then remark, “Whoever’s training you, they’re doing a good job.”

Yes. Training. And my trainer happens to be the person I mentioned beforehand as needing an _urgent_ alternative _medical_ help. Who got a double dose of _Crucio_ for however long it was. Who most likely got raped by a female Unspeakable some time before that. Who _also_ most likely got experimented on in the same timeframe. Whose throat is still a little too tender for making sounds, according to Justin, after screaming so hard for so long. Who was still trembling faintly by the time I left for Luna’s house. Who still can’t do anything but to grasp my hand and blink while lying in a bed.

I shake my head when Zabini sends me an inquiring look. “Nothing,” I insist. “Just… will you help? Luna said you might be able to help.”

They grumble under their breath, maybe about my blatant lie, or Luna’s reference, but, most importantly, _they nod their ascent_.

“Shall we go now, then?” I stretch out a hand.

They send me a disbelieving look. “Leave me a Portkey for tonight. I need to close down my flat and leave a false trail, first.”

“Huh?” I stare at them, dumbfounded. It sounds like a joke from a bad detective novel that Hermione sometimes talked about… but they’re saying it _straight-faced_ , just now.

Fortunately… or not… they explain, then. “Your friends got sniffed out by the Unspeakables for some reason, Potter. Lovegood told me. And last night they even snooped round here, although the two of us talked publicly only once. So the price for my help is most likely a lifetime of sanctuary _that still won’t jeopardise my freedom_. I don’t want to _disappear_ , but I want to go places, too.”

“Oh, shite,” I mutter.

“Now, are we agreed?” They quirk an eyebrow.

I look round at their one-room flat, noting how sparse and utilitarian most of their furniture, appliances and knick-knacks are, except for a practically decadent circular bed set on one corner that is overflowing with large, fluffy pillows and blankets and sports a solid railing all round it, making it a comfy nest.

“Maybe I should help you move?” I offer, at last.

They shake their head. “You should be able to deny your involvement with me, should one of us get captured, and vice versa.”

I look at them sharply. – Are they…?

They shrug and flick their right hand, causing their wand to fall into their waiting palm. Then, ignoring my sudden tension and the wand that’s also ready on my hand in response to their movement, they intone while holding their wand up, “I, Blaise Zabini, womb-child of Agnes Zabini, swear that I shall do my best to meet with Harry Potter tonight should he designate a place to meet in within the next five minutes. May I be bound to this vow in all that matters.”

They flick their wand again, then, and it vanishes… somewhere. “So?”

“I….” I shake my head. “What was _that_?”

They glare at me. “I do not wish to be an oath-breaker, so state where you are going to meet me _now_ , give me a Portkey there, and please vacate the premises immediately afterward.”

I glare back at them. But I _do_ need their help… and they know it well.

Prat.


	14. Rigging Up a Conversation Means

Warning for: reference to past character death

Black Lodge, 1st November 2003

“Hello again. Umm, somebody will be here to help you, tonight. I told my friends already. They’ll let the person in. I can stay with you, till then. If you want, I can stay with you through it, too.”

A blink.

“I’m looking forward to knowing you better. You’re an alien, aren’t you? I hope you can tell me things about your homeworld. It must be exciting! I always wanted to learn about other cultures and societies. I always wanted to travel, too. Things just… fell to the side, for a while.”

Another blink.

“Do you travel by spaceships? Is it why there’s no vehicle where you were found? Hermione told me. Do you know how they’re made? A friend thought I should learn how to make things, and meeting you like this makes me want to learn how to make a spaceship.”

Yet another blink.

I quirk a smile at the large, black-skinned, yet-unnamed man who lies in the bed, grasping my hand through the blanket and patiently listening. “Thought you’d be fed up with my chatter by now,” I admit. “I guess it’s yet another incentive for you to regain your voice and learn English, isn’t it? So you can shut me up whenever you want.”

The man blinks again, and adds a brief squeeze of his hand into the gesture. I send him a rueful look. “Sorry. I can be maudlin sometimes. Andy told me. She’s… my aunt. She died earlier this year. I…. Let’s talk about another thing, okay?”

I cast about desperately for a lighter, brighter topic, but thoughts of Andy – which lead to thoughts of Teddy _and their senseless deaths_ – crowd into my mind, now, jamming it and blurring everything.

I chuckle weakly when he squeezes my hand and shakes it a little. “Sorry. I…. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” I wipe impatiently at my eyes with my other hand, then look back up, straight into his own concerned eyes.

I jolt up when he makes a small, humming noise in his throat. “Whoa! You are not supposed to speak yet,” I plead. “Justin said your throat isn’t healed enough yet.” But how flattered I am secretly, that he makes the noise _for me_.

I suppose, something of the child that I never was remained, and surfaces now from time to time.

Still, making a noise now can mean a slower healing of his throat, or even permanent damage. I can’t let him break himself further for me.

So, I hesitate only a little before deciding to try to speak with him mind to mind. When our gazes meet again, I motion meaningfully to my temple with my free hand then drag the hand to his own temple, before dragging it back to mine.

He looks confused, but blinks to it, rather uncertainly.

I consider it a permission.

` _Legilimence,_ ` I intone in my mind after gathering up my magic and flooding my mind with it, though not to the point of saturation, which might be quite bad for my mental health and even life. I’ve been dilligently practising Occlumency these three years, under Chilla’s tutelage, and Legilimency came easier after that.

Only, I’ve been practising Occlumency lots of time but not yet doing Legilimency to anybody.

` _Oh, Merlin, please make it work,_ ` I mutter to myself even as a tendral of my own magic connects with the man’s mind through his eyes, shaped and pushed by the word of the spell and my own will.

I knock mentally on the fringes of his mind, asking for permission.

The man’s eyes widen, and shock not of my own floods my mind.

I grin a little. ` _Me,_ ` I send to him: a mental awareness of my own self.

` _Me,_ ` he sends back, unsurely, fumbling on his presentation, making it too strong but unclear. But _he does it_.

My grin is full-blown, now. It’s only an exchange of wordless concepts, _but we’re talking_!

` _Pride. Me to you,_ ` I send to him, next.

` _Happy. I look. You happy,_ ` he sends in response.

My breath hitches.

He’s too inexperienced in this type of communication to be able to lie, like Snape or Dumbledore. Besides, all the concepts that he’s sent me thus far are blunt, frank and sincere. So….

_He is sincerely glad that my mood has lightened_.

` _I am Honoured. You said, I am Happy,_ ` I tell him through concepts and emotions, while trying to regather my composure. It’s pathetic, to be toppled by a small, simple, unlooked-for piece of positive human interaction, but… well… _I don’t care_.

Time for business, though. ` _No using your throat for speaking, now,_ ` I tell him, with pointing to his throat and mouth to aid me. ` _Not fine now. Maybe later._ ` Damn. It’s so hard to speak like this, with the “words” so limited and sometimes unclear.

He sends his understanding _and mild amusement_ to me, in response… so maybe the meaning is still clear enough to him… _but still_!

I mock-glare to him and send him my indignation… with some embarrassment tagging along without permission. Damn.

Well, time to change topics, now that he understands, or he _might_ rib me as my friends – my _other_ friends – do.

` _I am Harry,_ ` I tell him, aiding the concept and the word with patting at my own chest with a free hand. Then I motion at him and send him an inquiring look and concept. ` _You?_ `

He turns deadly serious, just so. I straighten up in kind, unconsciously.

` _No tell others,_ ` I promise him. ` _You agree, I tell. You not, I not._ `

He looks deeply into my eyes for a long moment, as if rifling through my memories, though I don’t feel such in my mind. And then he says one word, ` _Teal’c._ `


	15. The Song

Warnings for: aftermath of torture, semi-graphic description of internal injuries

Chapter notes: The Song is from Rey-verse. Apparently, the muse would like to involve some elements of Marvel-verse _also_ in this story….

Black Lodge, 2nd November 2003

“It’s past midnight already, Zabini.”

“Still included in ‘tonight’.”

“Huff. I don’t know if he’s awake or not. He does need to sleep, you know.”

“The Song doesn’t require him to be awake.”

“The… song?”

“The _Song_ , Potter, with a capital S. You’ll see. You can stay. You might need it, yourself.”

“What’s the Song?”

“You’ll see.”

“No, tell me first.”

“Shall I swear that I do not mean you or the mystery man harm?”

“No. Just tell me. It’s much easier and less taxing, I think.”

“No. Too complicated. Too many questions. I’m tired, Potter. I’d rather go finish this then crash down somewhere comfortable. You can ask your questions tomorrow.”

I pause, scrutinising his countenance and posture sharply, just before we arrive at my guest’s bedroom. Zabini does show more expressions than normal, and use more words, as if too tired to care about their image. They don’t really slump, but they look like they _really_ want to.

I frown. I never knew of oaths that bind people except for the Unbreakable Vow before this, or I would have performed it in front of the entire school and guests in my fourth year at Hogwarts, when most of them doubted my _non_ -participation of putting my name forth as a champion for Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. But Zabini seems to take their vows – this kind of vow – seriously, and I do need my guest healed without any fear of sabotage or blabbermouth….

“All right. Swear it. To heal him – to do your best to heal him, and not by killing him or something bad like that – and not to tell anyone about healing him or his presence in relation to mine.”

The prat quirks a small smirk, to that. “He’s that important to you, eh? Now I’m ever more curious.”

I glare.

They swear the vow, in the end, after a few confirmations about the wording, all with a small smirk on their lips.

I fight not to stomp into the bedroom that’s been housing the man Hermione, Justin and I rescued, after that.

The man lying in the bed opens his eyes on my approach, as if this were just our usual chat session, not an unannounced visit in the middle of the night. It makes me suspicious if he ever managed to sleep, before this.

Well, no matter. Hopefully, he can sleep without pain after this.

“Hello,” I greet him verbally, then reach out with Legilimency and knock politely at the fringes of his mind.

It’s hard to put forth the concept of “friend,” and Zabini isn’t my friend anyway, so I introduce the prat to him as: ` _Good person. No male no female. I know them. Here to make better, for you._ `

Distrust not of my own flows into me on the concept of “make better.” It makes me try harder to convince him. ` _Safe. You will be better. They promised me, outside, before we walked in here. Serious promise. Chains them._ `

He caves in, _quite_ grudgingly and doubtfully.

` _I stay here?_ ` I offer, next. On his blink and mental agreement, I conjure a chair and seat myself beside the bed.

Zabini looks critically at the chair, then at the bed, then at the chair again.

“No,” they say at last. “Go lie on the bed. You’ll feel sleepy. I don’t want you to fall, if you sit on the chair, in case your conjuration doesn’t stay long. It’d mean more work for me. I’ll sit on the bed, myself, in case I’m too tired to go anywhere after that.”

I frown. But, before I can wonder aloud about how taxing and potant the healing would be, and quite without my permission or my guest’s, the prat already moves the latter to the side, blanket and all, and levitates me to the space they’ve just made on the bed.

“Hey!” I squawk belatedly, struggling against the force that seeks to lay me flat on the still-warm spot on the said bed. The man who now lies beside me also struggles, perhaps seeing my displeasure and mistaking it as alarm.

“If you want to rest any time soon, just go with it, Potter,” the prat scowls as they park their bottom on the foot of the bed as they said. “Look, you’re putting unnecessary stress on your friend. If you indeed mean to torture them, go ahead, but I won’t be party to it. Tell me first, so I can get out and claim a space somewhere else until you see sense.”

I cease struggling and glower mutely at them.

But, beside me, Teal’c _doesn’t_ cease his struggles. Damn.

Zabini seems to notice the same thing. After giving me a “Your fault” look, they seem to concentrate, closing their eyes, and… hum a string of notes, followed by another, and another, and another. The melodies seem to come from their throat, and yet… not. Too etherial, too perfect, too wide-ranged, too expressive, too frank, with power in each note, like the songs of the mer-folk but wordless and literally powerful.

Teal’c’s struggles lessen gradually on each string of the melodies, which are different from one to another.

Strangely enough, I feel like I somehow recognise the notes, or something like this peculiar form of singing, from… somewhere. It’s almost like déjà vu, while I’m rather sure that I was never exposed to it before.

And, freakier than the déjà vu, I seem to be able to _understand_ what each note represents, the longer I listen.

_And_ my new friend ceases his struggles entirely, when I unconsciously join in the… Song, which is… trying to convince him that Zabini means only to attempt to heal him, after introducing themself to him rather thoroughly.

The prat’s wide-eyed stare meets mine, even as I follow their lead in humming the notes.

I can’t think further on the reaction, as we’re coming to the healing part. My attention is entirely riveted on the full-body, full-detail scan on Teal’c _and his little abdominal tagalong_ that a particular series of melodies causes to appear in my mind.

And the damage to his nerve system is _thorough_.

He should have been braindead, or at least as bad as Neville’s mum, before she and her husband were killed in the Death Eaters’ last salvo – a killing spree on certain sections at St. Mungo’s.

Worse, the nerves are not the only damaged section on his body.

He shouldn’t have been able to blink, or grasp my hand, or hum that small noise that he used to attract my attention.

But he _did_. For _me_.

With that notion in mind, I’m eager – even impatient – to quickly heal the damages. But something warns me against deviating from Zabini’s path, so I hold the urge back… for now… with _much_ difficulty.

Damn. If I got my hands on those Unspeakables….

I wince inwardly when I falter on a few notes, overwhelmed by fury as I am.

Zabini glares angrily at me.

I look away, take a few deep breaths, and slip into the melodies again, just as the healing begins in earnest, tiny section by tiny section, with each different note for each different section. The pace of the singing is faster, now. Magic pours out of Zabini and I and washes gently but steadily over Teal’c’s damaged body like waves lapping on the shore of the Black Lake at Hogwarts.

And each section that it has touched is healed into perfection.

With the cost being my own vitality… and most likely also Zabini’s, as the magic that we spend never comes back to us, dissipating fully into the damaged sections of Teal’c’s body to repair them.

I am already more than half-way into the realm of oblivion when the last combined notes begin to fade.

The silence that follows feels heavy.


	16. Confrontations

Warnings for: reference to past torture, nudity, mild violence

Black Lodge, 3rd November 2003

I wake up lying in a bed not of my own. Different feels. Different smells.

Different sounds, too.

Voices. There are voices, too, unfamiliar to my bedroom’s vicinity.

One sounds a little bit like Hermione. A little far. Perhaps by the door.

The other is male and deep. Nearby. Rather high up. Standing? Tall?

The not-Hermione is impatient, also rather angry. The nearby male is… more stoic, and wary.

And neither of them are talking in English.

My. How _unpleasant_ , waking up like this. Can’t I get some respite, please? I feel like somebody transfigured _all_ my cells into heavy metal balls!

But if I don’t move and act now, who knows what’ll happen? Won’t be pleasant, certainly, especially _for me_. And I’ve got enough unpleasantness in these few days alone for a lifetime.

All right, Potter. Open your eyes, first, then….

Whoa!

I stare wide-eyed at the person standing by the door, which is in line with the head of the bed. It’s _Hermione_ , frizzy hair and all, but… not. The voice that I heard just now came from her direction, _but not entirely Hermione’s_.

And I’ve just remembered that Hermione bonded with a parasite similar to what Voldemort accidentally put in my forehead twenty-two years ago.

Damn. Damn. Damn. God – Merlin – whoever – I can’t take this! Zabini and I _passed out_ just now, trying to heal a _nearly-catatonic-by-torture man_! Now this….

I grit my teeth and turn as slowly as I can to the side, hoping to get up without being noticed by the verbal combatants.

And my eyes meet a black-skinned _naked_ thigh, in the process.

While there’s only one person currently in this place that I know of possessing black skin, instead of dark brown….

Oh, damn. It’s Teal’c. Facing off against Not-Hermione. Weaponless and clothingless.

Why, why, _why_ must my life be so _horrible_?

And now, Not-Hermione is _coming closer to the bed_ despite the menacing presence of my guardian angel, perhaps noticing me awake and moving. While I am very much defenceless, since my muscles are still quite stubbornly unresponsive, and my magic likewise.

Damn. The last time I am this helpless against someone who means ill to me, I was tied up on a headstone and my blood was forceably drawn and used in a ritual to resurrect Voldemort, before I got _Crucioed_ twice and had to fight for my own life and Cedric’s body in post-torture state.

Like that time, though, I’m not going down without a fight.

So, gritting my teeth again, I shift my elbow and laboriously prop myself up using that elbow.

Before I can use the elbow to lever myself up further, though, Teal’c barks something at Not-Hermione, which might mean “Stop” in whatever language they’re snapping at each other in.

Well, I’m always finding that problems, troubles and villains never heed that word, buddy. It’s a waste of your breath, honestly, but thank you for the attempt. I was never defended so in my life!

Not until Andy smoothed things over with the goblins for me, Ron and Hermione, maybe, but I think she did that for _Lord Black_ , not _Harry Potter_ , as we weren’t close yet, so it doesn’t count.

Andy…. Damn. Quite a _good_ time for me to reminisce about her! Get hold of yourself, Potter!

The anger that I drect at myself does give me a brief boost of energy, though.

I sit up, swaying drunkenly, just as Not-Hermione reaches out a hand towards me.

And Teal’c swings her away by that hand, only to toss her out of the door.

I flinch.

The man quickly strides towards the said door and closes it, just as Not-Hermione is scrambling onto her hands and knees on the hallway outside. He doesn’t immediately return to his previous post, though, taking some time to lean heavily against the thick wooden plank that makes up the door panel.

Or maybe, he’s guarding the way in while watching the only other way in, namely the single window that sits across the door.

I feel torn between gratitude to him for defending me so readily, concern for Hermione and her poor body, and upset with him for flinging away the body of my friend, regardless of whoever is in charge of that body presently.

I lean more towards concern _for him_ when the door suddenly vanishes and he falls into the hallway, twisting just at the right time to avoid a punch from… is it still Not-Hermione?

Well, only one way to find out.

“Hermione!”

Damn. My bed-croak is so pathetic.

But she looks at me, anyway, although the light in her eyes is alien to me. Nimbler than I would’ve expected her to be, she leaps over Teal’c and return inside.

“Greetings, Harry Potter. I am Arga, companion of Hermione Granger,” she says in the strange echoing tone from before, while dodging Teal’c’s attempts to subdue her as if she’d been practising martial arts all her life, despite the narrow space available in this bedroom. “Please tell your Jaffa to stand down, or I shall be forced to harm him.”

“My what? – No don’t come closer! Let go of my friend!” I scramble back and away from her, accidentally hitting Zabini’s insensate form in the process, which has somehow been moved from the foot of the bed to Teal’c’s former spot.

“Hermione would have fared worse than I did,” she argues.

I glower at her. “Let. Go,” I insist. “Let go or I’ll find a way to get you out of her _right now_.”

She jumps on the bed to evade a leg-swipe from Teal’c. But her eyes, when they meet mine again, definitely belong to Hermione’s once more – terrified out of her mind, confused, but _Hermione’s_.

“Whoa, Teal’c!” I shout to my new friend and self-assigned bodyguard, with a hand outstretched and palm towards him, fulfilling my bargain.

He freezes on a half-crouch, apparently about to jump on the bed to chase Hermione and her “companion” off of it.

I scramble closer to him, then pat the empty spot in front of me invitingly while motioning at Hermione to get back further, so as not to incite his defensiveness more or bother Zabini.

Well, that last one is sort of a too-late case, since they’re already pulling themself into a seated position, groaning and muttering under their breath all the while, but at least we’re all in a safish distance from each other now, except for me and Teal’c, who’s just taken the offered seat warily… and still naked, and shivering a little.

Damn. I forgot this, in the chaos.

“I need a house-elf, please,” I call to the empty air beyond the bed.

I request warm clothes while motioning at Teal’c as soon as one of the said house-elves pops into being before me. She beams and bobs a courtsy before popping out.

“Thank you!” I smile when the clothes materialise on the bed between me and Teal’c, seemingly out of nowhere.

Well, part of the smile is because the large and powerful Teal’c flinches away like a scalded cat because of some clothes, but I shan’t tell anybody that.

The smile remains as I scoop the clothes – some pretty outdated trousers and tunic and some clearly secondhand pair of socks, but clean-looking and clean-smellin – up and proffer it to him. ` _You,_ ` I tell him mentally as I look into his wary, wondering eyes.

He takes the small pile with a nod of thanks, which I reciprocate.

And then the moment is broken, by Hermione’s shrill demand of, “What did you tell him about me, Harry? He acted so antagonistic towards me! And I think it’s not because of… that thing! He was afraid of me and now he beat me up!”

I wince. And so does Zabini, apparently, because then they snap out sarcastically, “Maybe your tone, Granger? You mightn’t share the same language, but language isn’t only about words, you know. If that tone grates on _me_ already, I don’t want to imagine how a _traumatised_ person would feel.”

I sigh and throw Teal’c a rueful, apologetic look.

He raises an eyebrow stoicly, while in the process of donning the trousers without leaving the bed. His countenance is unreadable, now, and I unexpectedly miss our silent conversation of blinks, hand-squeezes and facial expressions from before.

I look away, and roll my eyes at the duel of glares that Hermione and Zabini are apparently conducting in my absence of a few seconds.

It’s my turn to break the moment. Looking straight into Hermione’s eyes after calling her name, I say firmly, “I told him nothing about you, Mione, or about anything and anyone else except for myself and some of what I was thinking or feeling at that time. Now, why did you come in here and persist to come to me despite all that? Didn’t he tell your… _companion_ … that I was all right and just sleeping?”

She huffs, flushes, and looks away. “I just meant to check on you, you know,” she grumps. “Do you know that he’s a Jaffa? The First Prime – the leader of the army – of Apophis, no less. And Apophis is a very bad man, Harry, Arga told me. They were around at the same time, in Ancient Egypt. He’s dangerous, Harry. His First Prime must be almost equally dangerous.” She’s looking back into my eyes in earnest, at the end.

I frown. “You sound like you’re regreting saving him from that place, now,” I say quietly.

She flushes and looks away again. “Not really,” she admits in an even quieter voice. “I was just… worried. You and Zabini were suddenly unconscious, and he was suddenly right as rain…. What should we think about, else?”

“We?” I emphasise.

She lets out a louder huff. “Arga and I, Harry. _We_. She agreed with me that I needed to get you away from the Jaffa, under such circumstance.”

“The Jaffa has a name, you know,” I point out, with a glance towards Teal’c for permission and a mental inquiry of, ` _Your self answers to word? Word I call you?_ `

He looks at her with sharp, heavy regard, in turn. He proclaims a few foreign words, then, with “Teal’c” being one of them.

And Hermione glares defiantly back.

“Not this again,” I sigh, and exchange an exasperated look with Zabini, of all people.

“All right!” I clap my hands sharply, thrice in quick succession, to break up the _second_ glaring match, this time between Hermione and Teal’c. “You,” I point a chiding finger at Hermione, “Don’t say _anything_ about Teal’c and his people to anybody except for us, and _only when we’re alone_ , unless you’re _really_ in danger from the knowledge. And you,” I point the same finger at Teal’c, who looks back at me in the same unreadable manner, “I…. No. Angering. Her.” I resort to physical and facial mimicry of the words, in the end. I give him the concepts mentally right after, for added measure.

“I’m not answerable to you,” Hermione snips back without a pause. I cringe inwardly, both from the hurt tone and the biting denial. But Zabini joins in before I can muster a comeback.

“You are in _their_ home, Granger, using _their_ things, eating from _their_ table, meeting _their_ people,” they point out acerbically. “Is it too much for them to ask for your silence on a matter that doesn’t involve you anyway? – No, no running away from this, Granger, not until you promise.”

Hermione glares accusingly at me. I stare calmly back at her – outwardly calm, at least! As I’m thoroughly confused by _Zabini_ defending me, calling me a “they” instead of a “he,” and bringing a rather antiquated rule about lordship into the fray.

“I just want to protect you!” she bursts out at length. I raise an eyebrow, belatedly realising that I’m imitating Teal’c _right in front of him_.

Well, the mimicry works, nevertheless, after a sufficient time of me not relenting, although I dearly wish to, not liking to stare into her hurt expression for a prolonged moment. She swears her vow, as coached by Zabini, then hops down from the bed and flounces away.

Zabini shakes their head in the wake of her wrathful exit, looking bemused. “Since first year, I never knew what you saw in her, Potter,” they remark dryly.

I train Teal’c® raised eyebrow at them.

They return it, perfectly, with their own small smirk in play for added measure.

They hop down the bed as well, then, without breaking our staring match, and… do a weird form of low courtsy _to me_ , while _also_ bowing low, with both of their hands linked at the small of their back and their head tilted to the side to expose their throat. “By your leave, my liege, I would like to freshen myself up before continuing to serve you.”

Their eyes sparkle with humour – maybe some ironic humour – that lightens up the grey-green colouring in the process, but there’s also _sincerity_ in that light.

“Damn you, Zabini,” I huff tiredly. “This is not the time for one of your twisted jokes.”

But they don’t budge from their weird bow-courtsy, and don’t say anything to confirm or deny my accusation, so I’m forced to wave a hand to dismiss them, with the hasty addition of, “Go, go, go, indulge yourself, Your Twistiness, _within reason_ , and don’t bother me till I bother you.”

They _grin_ to that, before rising up and backing away rapidly through the still-open door. Prat.

Now, I’ve just got to deal with Teal’c.

What a morning.


	17. Explorations

Norwegian Pinewood, 3rd November 2003

I made improvements to the existing memory crystals after I mastered Occlumency, by help of the experts at Black Sanctuary – which made me encourage the Residents to pursue jobs and studies that they like even more, but that’s another thing entirely. People who haven’t mastered Occlumency can benefit from those useful crystals, now, although I’d still encourage them to learn Occlumency first if the need for a crystal isn’t dire. With some tweaking, my memory-crystal team made it so that Squibs could join in reaping the benefits. And, after a request from Justin to give his in-the-know, orphan Muggle girlfriend a shortcut to learning Spanish, the team tweaked the crystals more so that Muggles could use them, too.

And just now, I proved that a Jaffa can benefit from a Muggle-friendly crystal, as I gave Teal’c access to a memory crystal about English – reading, writing, speaking, listening, nuances, dialects and even the nitty-gritty details, as mastered by an old, Muggleborn linguistics professor who is in the same Muggleborn Club as Hermione and Justin, which he donated in exchange to getting access to memory crystals of quite a few rare and reputedly dead languages, whose donors he provided himself… which made the team tweak a handful of blank crystals to siphon up and copy the relevant memories from Muggles.

The only downside to one of these small, transparent, disk-shaped crystals filled with swirling silvery memories, as far as I and my team know, is the attack of severe headache which can last from half a minute to half an hour, perhaps depending on the intake speed of each person. So I warned Teal’c beforehand and got him propped up on a tree-root, resting against the trunk of a particularly big pine tree which is still within the wards of Black Lodge.

I watched intensely and somewhat nervously as the memories seeped slowly out of the crystal, which was pressed against his temple by his own hand as the crystal requires, until the disk was fully transparent and Teal’c, closed-eyed, was openly grimacing. And then, just as slowly, the memories returned to the crystal one by one, having parted their knowledge, and now Teal’c looks at me ruefully, with his eyes still a little unfocused.

I shrug ruefully back to him. “The fastest and easiest way I know,” I tell him apologetically, in a lowered voice to account for his no-doubt lingering headache. “I used it another way, but I don’t think you would be able to do it. Besides, my way took so long.”

And his way, as evident just now, only took a minute.

What a clever fellow.

He bows from his seated position, rather low, in response. “My thanks, Harry.” Damn. He truly sounds like a native speaker of English. Good job, team. Sadly I can’t tell you about this finding, or I’d be a hypocrit in Hermione’s eyes.

Still, I give him a happy smile, as I recline against another pine tree which is more or less across from where he sits. “Are you warm enough?” I ask, while looking up and down at him, critically, referring to the secondhand woollen cloak with a hood and worn calf-high boots that the elves found somewhere to equip him further for this outing, plus the pair of woollen gloves that he is redonning now, after returning the crystal to me.

“I am,” he nods.

“So….” I fidget a little; nervous, for some reason. “Umm, do you feel fine enough? Want to explore these woods with me? I never got the chance, before.”

He rises to his feet, in response. – Well, he’s truly a man of few words, apparently, not just because he was in too much pain when I first chatted with him. But no matter, now I get to spend some not-stressful time with him outside the house.

I get to ask some questions to him, too, without anyone else listening in.

But I do that _only_ when we’re taking a rest, with me panting heavily under the burden of just my own body and my featherlight pack, having traversed miles into the forest and up the mountain.

“Thanks,” I gasp when I notice him – _still breathing normally and not sweating_! – gathering up some dried branches from our vicinity, most likely for some fire. I’m still too busy gulping in breaths while leaning heavily against a nearby pine to say anything, let alone to help.

I motion him away, though, when he tries to light up the pile of branches by striking two of them together. My body may be battered, but my magic has recovered some, by now, at least enough to light a fire.

He gazes thoughtfully at me when, with another motion of my hand, the pile lights up with a merry, crackling blaze.

I gaze back at him, seriously. “Don’t tell anybody,” I warn him when I’ve recovered my breaths. “People in my community don’t like to advertise their abilities to outsiders. I don’t want us to be hunted down. I don’t want _you_ to be hunted down, either.”

“As you wish.” He bows again.

“Is that your people’s way?” I ask, curious but also rather discomfited by all the bowing. “Bowing all the time like that, I mean.”

“Is it not your people’s way?” he asks back, rising from his bow, also raising an eyebrow.

I shrug uncomfortably. “Not mine, specifically.”

“But two of your people bowed to you, just this morning,” he points out in a reasonable tone.

I huff. “That loon,” I grumble sulkily. “Zabini was… joking, I think. And Tita refused not to courtsy. She’s an elf, and she said she likes to give ‘Master Harry’ due respect, and part of it is courtsying all the time and calling me Master.”

“Tita is your servant?” he asks as I hand him a cooking pot, which then I fill with _Aguamenti_.

“Yes. Elves need to bind themselves to people or places with power like what I showed you to live,” I explain while rummaging in my pack for the packets of Tita’s secret-recipe chocolate mix, also a few other ingredients and tools for hot chocolate. “They have power of their own, and they will die by that power going out of control if they don’t anchor themselves to a person or a place.”

“A symbiotic relationship?” he inquires. I look up and briefly stop rummaging, hearing the wary tone in his deep voice.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “The elves provide humans with various services, while the humans provide them with stability, belonging and, sometimes, even amplification of their native power.” Then, remembering Dobby’s tragic story and the conditions of the elves that I inherited from various families post-war, I add, “Some people don’t treat them right, though, and people mostly take the elves for granted by now. Through the generations, elves are made subservient to humans, though they could have lived side by side just fine.”

“Ah. I am familiar with such tales, myself, sadly,” Teal’c frowns, while spearing up a few trouts among the many that swim in the nearby spring. “This galaxy, it is mostly controlled by the Goa’uld, especially system lords like Ra, Chronos and Apophis.”

“So what Hermione said is true, then? You’re the leader of an army under someone called Apophis?” I venture out cautiously. “And what’s a ‘Gowel’?”

“Go-ah-oold, Harry. A Goa’uld has long body and no limbs. Some rumour says that it is genderless until it takes a host. It lives in aquatic environment. It feeds from the nutritions that humans process, as far as I know. And… indeed, I am the First Prime of Apophis. I am the leader of his armed forces, in charge of planning for and executing whatever he wishes,” he confirms solemnly, as he returns with the makeshift spear and four trouts stuck on it. Thankfully, he doesn’t look away when I try to meet his eyes, and I don’t detect malice in those eyes, although he is otherwise unreadable… _again_.

Still, I prod while watching him gut the trouts, “Everything, including taking humans as hostage?”

“Indeed,” he murmurs, now with sadness and regret tinting his voice and the expression in his downcast eyes. “Apophis wished for more slaves in his camps, and more hosts for his children and underlings. What I and my men did on Tau’ri was to be our third raid already.”

“Hosts? Like Arga with Hermione, then?” I offer tentatively, hopefully.

He shakes his head. My heart squeezes tight and sinks low, as if trying to force itself through to my stomach. It’s worse when he explains that a host normally has _no_ control of his or her own body after a Goa’uld has entered him or her, usually through the mouth or the neck. Essentially, the host will be the Goa’uld, no longer who he or she previously was, although the face and body and a remnant of the voice will still be there. And _nearly all_ of the Goa’uld are power-hungry, cruel little snakes… and it’s an offence to snakes everywhere!

Being a host… it’s _unbreakable Imperius_ – anywhere, anyone, any time!

I help Teal’c make a fish soup in silence, using some ingredients and spices that I happen to have plopped into the bottomless depths of my pack this morning, as my stomach roils and bile tries to escape up my throat time and time again. The crisp, pine-scented mountain air doesn’t help much, especially since I can still smell fish guts underneath it all.

And thinking of fish makes me think of something larger and fiercer than the little creature nesting in Teal’c’s belly, zipping into an unwitting human as he or she swims peacefully in a pool.

Which just makes me more nauseous.

I shake my head when Teal’c proffers the first bowl of fish soup to me. Motioning him to drink the soup himself, I set aside the pot of soup, perching it atop a nest of pine needles, then prepare another cooking pot to make hot chocolate.

“What are you making, Harry?” he ventures out at length, amidst sips of the fish soup. His tone is the gentlest that I’ve ever heard from him thus far, which oddly just makes me feel more aweful.

“Hot chocolate,” I manage, after a few deep inhales of the fragrant aroma emanating from the potful of it brewing on the fire. “Mightn’t be quite a match to fish soup, but I thought we could make use of the boost from it. Plus, Tita’s hot chocolate is delicious.”

We fall into chit-chats about Earth foods and drinks in no time at all. I am only aware that I no longer feel so overwhelmed when, carefully, after we’re finished with the soup and the chocolate, Teal’c broaches the upsetting subject again, by asking me if I would like to examine the larva Goa’uld that he has nesting in his belly.

I instead ask him about why he has a larva Goa’uld in his belly, if it hurts him, if he can be taken over by the Goa’uld whether now or when the larva has matured, why he looks and reads as mostly human…. And he answers them all, patiently, like Bill – like a big brother would, judging from the comparison.

By the time we have descended far enough from our resting place to see Black Lodge from amidst the trunks of the pine trees, I feel settled enough to gratefully accept his offer and resume my questions about the Goa’uld.

My. What a clever fellow, indeed. He managed to steer me out of my funk so smoothly that I didn’t realise it until it’s too late.

Dangerous, too. No wonder he is the leader of some armed forces under a blogue whose control spans a _galaxy_.

But honorable, in his own stoic way, because he willingly returns us to the original topic himself.

If only Dumbledore had been like that….


	18. Complications and New Plans

Warnings for: canon-typical violence, canon character death

Black Lodge, 3rd November 2003

The dining room is… much fuller than before, as I peek in, after coming in through the back door ahead of Teal’c and getting curious about the noises emanating from this room.

“Whoa! George? Nev? And…. Whoa. Why are you all here?”

“Can’t you guess, Harry?”

“The Unspeakables–.”

“Don’t spoil the fun, Neville. And who’s the awesome blogue with a tattoo behind you, Harry? New bodyguard?”

“He’s a new friend. Come on, introduce yourself.”

“Hello, Harry’s companions. I am Teal’c of Chulak.”

“Ooh, I like the bow. Quite smooth, mister.”

“Chulak…. It’s not anywhere near here, is it? Are you from somewhere in Africa?”

“No, I am not, miss.”

“Where are you from?”

“Chulak.”

“Come on, folks, enough with the interrogation. Why are you here? Something about the Unspeakables?”

“They tried to detain George in their department, Harry. – No, shut up, George. – Well, George fought back, and some of them got injured, so he got to be dumped in an Auror holding cell instead. Neville broke him out… after he got tipped by the Minister.”

“ _Kingsley_?”

“Yes, Harry. I know. I couldn’t believe it, myself, when Neville told me. After… well, _that day_ , you know I’ve been distancing myself from anything to do with him. But apparently he’s been having his own investigation about that day. At least that’s what he told Neville. They met under disguise in Kew Gardens – can you believe it?”

“I believe it more than Kingsley jeopardising his position and life to get George out. No offence, George, but three people were murdered in broad daylight, and here you were about to be… framed, maybe, by the Unspeakables.”

“Not that the Unspeakables are good to their prisoners.”

“Mione….”

“No, Harry, they must _know_.”

“ _Mione_ , it’s not your secret to give. Even if you got permission from one, you haven’t gotten any permission from the other. There’s something more pressing, anyway, right now. – George, did the Unspeakables say something to you when they were about to nab you?”

“Nope. Why would they? They’re Unspeakables, after all.”

“Is anybody else thinking they’re in danger from getting picked up by the Unspeakables? – Whoa. All right. What should we do, now? You’re welcome to stay here with me, but I won’t be here forever, and Black properties recognise Black blood only….”

“We do have Black blood in some of us, Harry. My great-grandmother and George’s grandmother were Blacks, and they weren’t disowned. But I agree that we can’t stay here forever.”

“No, I don’t want to be on the run again.”

“Neither do I, Mione. But if we don’t want to hide or be on the run, we must be able to neutralise the pursuers without _us_ getting trouble with the law.”

“Well, but we can defend ourselves even if we’re detained by the Aurors, can’t we?”

“Susan… did your aunt ever tell you about Fudge getting me a trial _before the whole Wizengamot_ when I was fifteen? It was only because I _genuinely_ tried to defend myself and my cousin _who already knew about magic_ from a pair of Dementors. It got me tried like a Death Eater instead.”

The dining room plunges into total silence. Not even the sound of breathing is heard.

And then Odi – Tita’s brother – pops in, with a letter in his hand.

The silence is broken and turns into uneasy murmurs, with snapshots rising higher, as if everyone but Teal’c and I is busy with planning their urgent getaways.

My attention is not on my own getaway, though, neither on Teal’c’s, nor anyone else’s – for now. Because I’ve just read the words scrolled hurriedly on the small scrap of parchment and, with my heart sinking lower and lower, gradually understood them on each repetition.

**Harry,**  
By the time you get this letter we are already taking the Portkey to my field assignment. Don’t go to Shell Cottage. It is a trap in a few ways. I already told Mum and Dad. Hopefully Neville can get George safely to you. Please keep him and yourself safe and thank you for everything.  
Bill

I pass the letter on to George, afterwards, and watch as his face first pales then reddens, accompanied by widened eyes and a scowl, respectively.

“Wanna go stay with him?” I offer. – Bill told me where he and his family were going to be stationed at by Gringotts, and I think we all could go there until the figurative heat here in Great Britain has cooled down some, but I’m also aware of the added danger to Bill, Fleur and Victoire by openly associating with us while they’re essentially on the run. George is his brother, though, and only one person. It might be safe for the both of them if it’s only George that joins him.

But George’s shaking his head, now, with jaw clenched and eyes blazing, uncharacteristically, so I keep mum about my reasoning.

“Maybe we should make sure that the other Weasleys are safe?” Hermione ventures out timidly in the tenser silence that ensues, as the letter is passed from person to person at the dining table.

George shakes his head again, apparently still incapable of speaking. “Too risky. Too dangerous,” I rebut on his behalf. “We could send a few house-elves, but then everyone will wonder, and the house-elves will be forced to state that they are mine.”

“And Potter is the reason we are here,” Zabini pipes in helpefully.

I glare at them and point out dryly, “That statement could be taken in two opposite ways, you know.”

They smile beatifically, in response. “Clever, aren’t I?”

Damn. That look is so punchable.

Neville breaks in, with a small smile on his lips although his face remains tense and more serious than ever, before Hermione can huffingly break the byplay herself. “Maybe it’s time for us to take a world tour? Generations before our parents’ did that. Gran told me about her own adventure visiting Uagadou and its surrounding mountains after Hogwarts. She even took another one with Grandad after they’re married, to search and gather various samples of magical plants.”

“Ooh! We could go search for Crumpled-horn Snorkaks!” Luna exclaims right after, her face lighting up gleefully.

Hermione rolls her eyes. Before she can refute the statement _yet again_ , though, Justin _thankfully_ joins in, approving the plan. “Hiding in plain sight. I like it. We’re more vulnerable, too, if we’re away from each other. Well, sometimes I wish I didn’t know you better, Harry, I admit, but you made Milla so happy, and I think she’d welcome that if we’re to go with you round the world. I can help chip in for the expenses.”

George shrugs when I look meaningfully at him for his opinion. “Haven’t been in the Burrow for a while,” he admits. “Still living above the shop.” He is clearly reluctant to continue, but continue he does, further admitting that the shop reminds him too much about Fred and some time away from it could maybe help him get better about his twin’s absence.

“You could always bring a portable room with you to make new things, George,” Luna points out kindly. “Newt Scamander had a trunk full of habitats for various animals. I think I’ll do the same, if I’ve got the time and materials. Daddy gave me specifications for the trunk for my seventeenth birthday. The booklet was signed by Mister Scamander himself!”

Hermione shrugs resignedly when my inquiring gaze meet hers, while Susan points out sadly that the last war made her truly an orphan and homeless, as Bones Manor had been demolished by _Fiendfyre_ before her aunt was murdered in the flat that she rented afterwards.

And the last one, Zabini, gives me a lopsided smile and a seated version of their weird bow-courtsy as a show of their approval.

I slump against the back of my chair, then, with a loud, resigned puff of breath. I’m unexpectedly but genuinely _grateful_ that these people won’t leave me, although associating with me has plunged them into trouble already in various ways. But if they’re blatantly seen with me, let alone as close as they’re planning to do, they’ll be in even more danger!

“Go think on it _carefully_ through the night, folks,” I advise us all, in the end. Then I leave the dining room altogether, beckoning Teal’c to follow.

“Are you going to return to Apophis?” I ask him carefully when we’re safely in his bedroom and seated on the edge of his bed.

“I should,” he answers just as carefully. The light in his eyes shows that he’s torn about the decision, though, rather unexpectedly.

“Do you know where your people are?” I reluctantly prod further. “Do you know how to reach them?”

“I do,” he confirms solemnly.

I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Are you going to be safe with them? Not suspected of… things, and imprisoned or worse?”

“I should be.”

“All right,” I mutter. Then, in a louder voice, I continue, “Are you going to be able to keep our secrets against everyone, even Apophis?”

“If you could safeguard my mind, yes,” he nods.

I am taken aback. “What makes you think I can do that?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You conversed with me in my mind. I assumed you can do more than that.”

I huff and ruefully shake my head. “It was the first time I tried that,” I admit apologetically. “Before that, I could only guard my mind, passively.”

“Maybe, if you taught me how to guard my mind?” he prods back.

I regard him silently for a long moment, then admit that I have never taught anybody the arts of Occlumency. “You… don’t have the power, not like me and my friends,” I explain further. “I don’t know if you can do it, not if you will. It’s…. We begin by meditation, I suppose. You still have your thoughts, but you disregard them, gradually, till you’re swimming alone in peace. Then, when you can go to that state easily and hold it despite any interruptions, you begin to sure up the fringes of your mind. You can even place false or tweaked memories on the fringes as defence. At least that’s how I learnt it.”

He looks surprised.

A moment after, I got the reason why.

“My people – the Jaffa – do not really sleep, especially not after we receive the prim’ta – the larvae of the Goa’uld,” he says. “We enter into kel’no’reem as the larvae repair and renew our bodies. It sounds very similar to your meditation.”

“Ah.” I brighten up. “Shall we try it, then?”

He quirks a small smile at me. “Do you wish me gone so soon, Harry?”

I wince. “No!” I blurt out, horrified. “I’d like you to be here forever, actually. But you seemed to like your people, even if you don’t like Apophis, and they could be in danger if they return without you. Our world, too, and we don’t have any defence against Apophis and the like, too, not that I know.”

His smile widens a little and turns sad, no longer… teasing? He acknowledges my confession with a nod, in any case, then follows up with, “Might I request a favour from you for my people?”

I nod warily. But truth be told, by now, I would do almost anything for him, for the care he gave me and my wellbeing in our impromptu little hiking and camping today. I’ve even planned – however vaguely – to gain mastery in _potions_ , of all things, so that there won’t be any other cases like his, so recently, in which no potions could help alleviate the agony and damages safely.

He hesitates, but then forges on, complete with straightening up while still sitting on the bed barely two feet away from me. “Your power is unknown in the wider galaxy,” he begins, cautiously. “You seem to be able to achieve feats that are unheard of, thus far. Your community possess similar powers to yours, as well, from what you told me.”

He pauses, then, seemingly to brace himself up, before continuing in a faster pace, almost hurried – or maybe it’s his version of speaking in a hurry. “There comes a time when a Jaffa can no longer receive a prim’ta to help to keep them alive. Sometimes, the Jaffa cannot have access to more prim’ta once the ones in theirs have matured, for one reason or another. And in a few cases, a prim’ta can be withdrawn from the Jaffa, as a form of punishment for the offender, and even also for his family.” His voice tightens noticeably on this part, and in the next second I am informed why: “My father was the First Prime of Chronos. He was bidden to lead the army in an impossible battle. They lost, as expected, and Chronos blamed my father for the failure. My father died slowly and agonisingly, with his body no longer supported by his prim’ta, while my mother and I must flee our home to Chulak – to Apophis’ territory – so that Chronos would not do the same to us. It was what made me do my best to become the First Prime of Apophis, one of Chronos’ most dangerous enemies.”

Tentatively, then more boldly, I lay my hand atop his fist, which is blutching a bunch of his blanket spasmodically. It’s an unpleasant reminder of the horrible, horrible time so recently, in which hand-squeezes and blinks and some expressions were his only means of communication, but it’s also comforting to me, somehow.

But then again, it shouldn’t be surprising, should it? He is here. He hasn’t gone distant after being healed. And he takes care to explain things to me, even though it clearly pains him.

So I try to help him along, by hazarding a likely guess: “You want me to find out if I can make the Jaffa no longer dependent on their prim’ta?”

“If you would,” he breathes.

I nod firmly. “I’ll do my best. We just need to figure out how to send them to me and where.” No need to think about it again. I don’t want anyone to die slowly and painfully, even if they’re my enemy. I don’t want to hear any other women and children threatened like that, either, or have to witness the men that they love die in such a way.

All emerging plans and what-ifs and other thoughts flee my mind, though, when Teal’c – the large, imposing, powerful man – slides to the floor and prostates himself at my feet, with his forehead glued to the floor.

I squawk, loudly, and flinch to my feet. “ _Teal’c_! Why in the world do you do that for?!”

Well, he doesn’t budge, and doesn’t say anything, just heaving ragged breaths, so I kneel in front of him and do my best to lift him up by the shoulders.

A nearly impossible feat, that. He’s so _heavy_ despite his recent ordeal!

But I’ve got magic with me, and the Featherweight Charm can be applied to living beings.

In short, I’ve got a huge, hulking man clutching me tight – nearly to the point of asphyxiation, in fact.

Oh. My.


	19. Mini Me, Part 1

Credit to: the Harry Potter _Definition_ fanfiction series by **OliverSnape** for the age-appropriate thoughts and emotions influencing a de-aged person

Warning for: metamorphic-induced de-aging

Black Lodge, 4th November 2003

“Teal’c? Might I ask for a favour? It’s totally unrelated to what we talked about, by the way, so you can just say no to this if you don’t want to and I won’t take offence to that, _at all_ , really.”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Umm… erh… I… well, I can change my shapes to many human or humanoid forms, see, and different ages, too. Not all people can, and I didn’t find out till one of my friends told me, so I’ve been practising. Only, I practised under my aunt’s watch, and she’s been dead for months, now.”

“Why did you ask it of me, Harry? I do not possess power like yours.”

“I…. Well, experiments like this, they normally don’t need supervision, really, but my childhood was… not so good. Memories and emotions about some specific age became fresh, when I turned myself to look that age. Actually I found it by accidence, and my aunt found it when I didn’t come in for dinner. She found me in my wardrobe, hiding and… well, crying. I was so confused, and afraid, and… didn’t feel good. I nearly couldn’t turn back. She had to calm me down and lead me to think about changing back, before I could change back. So it’s not about magic – about power – really. Just… you’ve been good to me, and I can’t ask this of my friends. They’re not much older than I am. I could ask Bill, I suppose; he’s old enough and he can make me… well, feel fine, really; but he’s somewhere far away with his family, running away from our government, so I can’t ask him for help. I’m fine, too, if you’d like to think about it first.”

“What age did you turn into, when you first attempted it?”

“Nine, I think, or a little younger, but not in this form. It felt natural, sort of. It’s my first age-related change, too.”

“Would you like to turn to that age again?”

“Well, yes, if I can. As I said, it felt rather natural, similar to my baseline form.”

“Baseline form?”

“Well, every metamorph – people like me – have their true appearance. We must return to that shape from time to time, to… relax our muscles, sort of.”

“Do I need to specifically prepare for something, when you are in that age and form?”

“Not really. Just… don’t think too badly of me, please? And don’t tell anybody? Not yet, at least. I mightn’t immediately recognise you, too. You must be able to convince me. And, erm, I might end up being so clingy….”

“How tall are you when you are in that age and form?”

“A little taller than the bed? I was always a little runt of a child, even in that form….”

“Very well.”

“Huh? Just that?”

“What do you wish me to say?”

“Well… no…. All right. Here we go.”

I close my eyes, take deep breaths, urge my “magical muscles” to relax… and relief washes across my entire being like a wave of cool water, hitting me all at once. A second wave of relief follows, as I focus myself on my yearning for family, for safety and security in the arms of a parent that I have never known, for a childhood that I never had.

I burrow deep into my far-oversized clothes, though, instead of shucking them off, as my senses adjust. There’s somebody nearby! I might be safe if whoever-it-is can’t see me.

But whoever-it-is is inching closer, instead; I can hear it. – No, I must get away!

I scramble back, tripping over all the garments and shoes, gasping and heaving my breaths, my heart pounding. Screaming for help is useless. Nobody will save me. Nobody cares. No, no, I must _run_.

Whoever-it-is pries the clothes away. I let out a terrified squeak. I can’t help it! But at least I’m free, now. So, wide-eyed and naked, I dart to the safest place thus far, namely the opposite wall, which is by the _open_ door.

I turn round when I’ve reached the wall, positioning myself right by the door. I need to see whoever-it-is, to see how I can evade it next.

And… whoa, he is _huge_! But why’s he sitting on the floor? The floor’s only for freaks, no? Is he a freak, too? He’s black-skinned, and Uncle Vernon said black-skinned people are freaks, just like me.

But why’s he not moving? Why’s he just looking at me? So calmly at that? He may be a freak like me, but he’s still an _adult_ , and adults are bossy people.

And then he… calls my name…? How does he know my name? Did he find it out at school? But I’ve never seen him at school! Surely he didn’t get it from the Dursleys? They didn’t even call me “Harry” till I started school.

I frown, but make sure that I’m frowning at the floor, not him. I could be in so much trouble if I’m not polite to an adult!

I shouldn’t have looked away, though.

In no time at all, the man’s suddenly beside me, and picking me up, and pinning me close. I can’t even scream in reflex, because he’s covering my mouth with a huge, huge hand, and I can’t even bite at it since he’s placed the hand so cleverly.

Stupid Harry.

I struggle, buck, kick, pinch, uncaring of what he’ll do to me in retaliation. But nothing makes him let go of me.

In fact, he’s now pinning me by my legs, _too_. I feel like a baby that Mrs. No. 5 once showed off to Aunt Petunia.

Umm, he does nothing else, though, even after a while. He’s just… rocking me back and forth a little. But I’m not a baby, right? I’m nine years old, not nine months!

But, the longer he moves like that, the more I feel… nice. His breathing and heartbeats sound so loud, with my ear pressed against his chest like this, but it’s not a bad loud. It really makes me feel nice.

In fact, I miss it when he shifts me back up.

“Harry?” he says again, softer, with an odd light in his eyes, something that I’ve seen Aunt Petunia give Dudley when he scraped his knees or got sick, but never me.

My lips wobble, my throat closes up, but I force myself to answer, because adults always demand answers: “Yes?”

“Do you remember who I am?” he asks.

I scrunch up my forehead, try to remember, try to puzzle out this freaky thing – yet another freaky thing that the Dursleys will blame me about.

But this place doesn’t seem to be Privet Drive No. 4…. Am I not with the Dursleys, then? How? Why?

“No,” I answer him truthfully, then cringe… or try to cringe, and can’t, because he’s still holding me tight.

“I am Teal’c of Chulak, the Jaffa that you saved and healed,” he says in that soft tone so alien to me. Perfectly calm. And he doesn’t point out how much I’ve hurt him, or how much I’ve been trying to escape him.

Then, if he isn’t too bothered…. “What’s a Jaffa?”

“The explanation would take a very long time,” he says, and I slump. Adults.

But then, he continues, “I am a man whom you took well care of, and I would like to repay you before I need to return to my people.”

“Oh,” I mutter stupidly. “Really?”

“Indeed,” he says firmly. “You took care of me. Now I take care of you.”

“No chores? No hits? Harry-hunting?” I venture out cautiously, tentatively. “What about eating? Where are we? Do I sleep in a cupboard?”

“You have servants that do chores,” the man – unbelievably – _answers_ as he rises to his feet. “Nobody will harm you, as long as I am with you. We are in the room that you assigned to me. Your own room is located elsewhere, from what I know, and not a cupboard. And if you are hungry, by your permission, I shall call one of your servants to make you a meal and give you clothes.”

_Wow_. It feels like heaven or paradise that some teachers talked about. A huge man who promises to take care of me and keep me safe, no chores, no beating, no Harry-hunting, no cupboard, no scolding my many questions, _answers to those questions,_ eating as soon as I want it, clothing as soon as I want it….

“Are you an angel?” I whisper, looking into the man’s eyes – so black, but so warm. The teachers said that angels live in heaven and paradise….

And he _smiles_ to that; not mockingly, at that. “I am a Jaffa, Harry, not an angel. If you would, you could tell me what an angel is, after you have eaten and donned some clothes?”

I nod rapidly.

And his smile _widens_.

Just for _me_.

I feel odd but so nice inside. It’s like my heart squirms, or something like that, and it feels so warm.

I think I like the feeling.

I think I want more and more and more of it.


	20. Mini Me, Part 2

Credit to: the Harry Potter _Definition_ fanfiction series by **OliverSnape** for the age-appropriate thoughts and emotions influencing a de-aged person

Warning for: metamorphic-induced de-aging

Chapter notes: Last chapter of the de-aging, for now. And, should I say, Teal’c doesn’t really know how to talk to a child….

Norwegian Pinewood, 4th November 2003

“Where are we going?”

“You said that you wished to ‘go camping’.”

“Are you going to keep carrying me?”

“If you wish it.”

“Aren’t I heavy?”

“No, you are not. And I am accustomed to carrying heavy things and people.”

“Really? What things and people?”

“Weapons and my fellow Jaffa when they were injured, mostly.”

“Are you a soldier?”

“Indeed, I am.”

I hang onto my angel’s shoulders for a while in silence, looking round with wide eyes at all the pine trees, shrubberies and rocks that litter our path.

“It looks like I came here, before,” I confess at last, timidly, ready to be called a freak.

But the man nods, instead, and says, “You are not always this small. You invited me for a walk here, yesterday.” Laughter sparkles in his eyes, then, but it’s not a mean one. “You found the journey hard. You were quite winded when we came upon a pool of clean water.”

I grin. “You going to bring me there?”

He nods again. “Or farther up,” he offers.

I nod enthusiastically, then squirm for a higher perch.

My angel doesn’t scold me for that! He changes the positions of his arms, instead, and let me ride almost on his shoulder.

Unbelievable. Even Aunt Petunia scolded Dudley when he squirmed too much in her arms, when we’re small!

Then I remember…. “You aren’t going to tell Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, are you?”

He shakes his head. “You heard me instruct your servant, did you not, Harry? The only people who will be informed of where we are are your friends and servants, and you never told me that ‘Aunt Petunia’ and ‘Uncle Vernon’ are among them.”

I grin happily, remembering the kind green being who suddenly appeared in the man’s room and called me “Master Harry,” who gave me tasty meal and comfy clothes, who agreed to tell “the other masters and mistresses” only when we’re long gone, who gave the man a pack full of camping things, who helped the man go out of the house through the window.

I’m having an adventure in a pine forest, like Dudley never did! He’ll be so jealous! I just hope I won’t get in too much trouble, if I tell him….

I coo excitedly when we arrive at the place where we camped before. “Fish!” And there are lots of them, swimming in the rocky pool of clear water with more water falling in large trickles from more rocks, like a natural showerhead!

“Do you wish to eat some fish soup?” my angel offers. “We ate it yesterday, from the fish that I caught here. You provided the fire and the water for cooking, as well as a few more ingredients and some hot chocolate.”

I shake my head regretfully. “Still full,” I admit. “Can we come back here soon and eat?”

He nods. “Do you wish to stay here then return to the house, stay here then continue farther, or directly leave for a higher spot?”

“Can we stay here for a while and take a look after we’re back from somewhere higher?” I venture out timidly. Having good choices _that come true_ is still quite new to me; and _not_ being scolded or beaten for it, even more.

His quick nod makes me beam at him. Him just as quickly continuing walking up the path, with equally no hesitation or reluctance, makes me want to do something nice for him.

Well, Aunt Petunia likes it very much when Dudley hugs her, although he does it so that she gives him more sweets or pocket money. So maybe my angel will like it too, if I hug him?

Only one way to find out….

With a deep breath, I carefully, carefully, carefully squirm lower and lean bonelessly against him and put my arms round his neck and nestle my face into the crook of the said neck, then release the breath in a whoosh.

My! It feels so nice!

It feels even nicer when he shifts his arms again and _cuddles me close_.

I feel so small, but so… safe. Much more than when I’m in my cupboard but not locked in and _know_ that Uncle Vernon can’t get to me because he’s too big for the cupboard.

I want to cry, but I don’t know why. I certainly don’t feel sad. I feel _so_ happy, in fact.

“Thank you,” I whisper to him, because I don’t know what to do with myself, otherwise, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon always tell me that “ungrateful freaks” like I am must be always thankful. My voice sounds wet and wobbly, but I don’t care.

His voice is equally strange, anyway, when he replies, “You are quite welcome, Harry.” Maybe it’s the fault of the big gulp he’s just taken?

It’s nice to be thanked, in any case, and I’m determined to keep his you-are-welcome in mind, forever and ever.

The weather gets colder the farther my angel carries me up the path, but I don’t mind it. He begins to tremble a little, though, so I ask if he has warm clothes for himself in the pack. “I’m not cold,” I insist when he rummages inside the thing and comes up with a few pieces of thick clothes on my size. “You are shaking. You need to wear thicker clothes.”

“Will you wear your thick clothes if I wear mine?” he… bargains? Whoa, this is _new_. It’s like Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon bargaining with Dudley in the rare times either of them really wants him to do something, usually to be nice to Aunt Marge and her dog.

“Can we spend tonight beside the pond with the shower-like water, if I wear thicker clothes and you wear yours?” I bargain back, tentatively, revelling in the newness of it but still pretty wary of everything blowing up on me.

He nods, so I – quite reluctantly – start to layer the thicker clothes over my original clothes, while watching him wear his own thicker layer. We stuff our feet into a second layer of socks, then, before relacing our boots.

“Would you like to walk or be carried again, Harry?” he asks when we’re ready.

“Will you carry me after we walk for some time?” I ask back. I’m being greedy, I know, but who knows when this good thing will end? I must take all that I can get before I wake up and find myself back with the Dursleys!

I beam up at him when he says yes.

He asks me about angels while we hike up the path. A little puffingly but quite eagerly, I tell him all about angels and heaven and paradise.

I ask him why he’s so strong, then, while hopping up from root to root. When he tells me that Jaffa men are strong because of their warrior training, I ask if I will be a Jaffa man someday.

“You will be a kind human,” he smiles in answer.

From my spot a few feet away from him and farther up, I smile back at him, sadly. “Nobody ever told me I’m kind,” I say. “Do you think I will be kind?”

“I _know_ it,” he nods.

“Do you think I’m a freak?” I prod further.

He shakes his head.

“Whoo!” I murmur to myself, beam at him, turn round and continue my hops from root to root and from rock to rock. He says I’m kind and not a freak!

But then, I find a strange door-like spot in thin air between two old trees that my angel can’t see but can feel, and I wish to explore it, and he begs me to “change back” so seriously, and my excitement dims.

I remember him explaining to me, while we were eating in his bedroom, that I was a grown-up who wanted to try to be a child in a “safe environment.” I remember him promising that he wouldn’t ask me to be a grown-up again unless he’s to go home or there’s something bad about to happen to us.

“Is it bad?” I ask, motioning at the door-like spot between the trees, which I’m turning my back on. “It feels like something I should’ve known. It feels like… home.”

“It feels like a chaapa’ai to my senses,” he admits while crouching before me, with an eye fixed on the spot I’ve pointed out to him while the other is trained on me.

“Chappy?” I repeat, baffled.

“Cha-paaa-ee,” he spells out, then adds, “It is how the Goa’uld and Jaffa move from planet to planet, when we do not move by ship. The Chaapa’ai are highly visible, however, unlike this.”

He describes the Chaapa’ai, then, which is translated into “Stargates” in English. The details are interesting but a little puzzling… and I’m not aware that he’s moved me to the side, not until he puts an arm round my waist and holds me close to his side.

I huff.

“I do not advise us to go through this gate at present,” he tells me before I can muster some courage to complain. “I am weaponless; you, likewise; and it is not certain whether we will be able to return to this place once we are there, because of one reason or another. The cold might even kill us before any native species had a chance to see us.”

I huff again.

“How can we get weapons?” I ask hopefully. “Don’t you think these clothes are enough already for the cold? I feel so hot!”

He shakes his head. “My weapons were taken. As it is, I need to return to my people through another means. As for the cold, it has penetrated through all the layers that I’m wearing.”

“Oh.” I really, really, really don’t want to be reminded about him going away….

Well, but if he _really_ must go away, soon at that, wouldn’t it better if I weren’t a grown-up, would it? He can’t carry me if I’m a grown-up; not comfily, at any rate, since I’m not “injured” in any way. And, by now, I can’t get enough of his hugs.

I really want to explore the door-like thing that feels like home, but my angel says it’s not certain, while his hugs are certain – he promised me so!

So, rather grudgingly, I squirm till I get to his front, then climb up to my usual spot hanging from his neck, instead of persisting to go through the door-like spot between the trees.

And just so, he rises up without a word, and treks back down the path.

Bye-bye, home-like something. I wish I could visit you.


	21. Fawkes

Dialogue marker: mental communication is italicised and bracketed by single quotation marks.

Black Lodge, 5th November 2003

“You went _out_ , in a time like _this_ , just for _fun_?” It’s Hermione, huffing.

“You were… a little child, Harry? How small?” Luna, curious.

“Since when are you a metamorph, Harry? Did you nick some of Tonks’ blood and get adopted by her? Why don’t we see the morphs everyday, like Tonks did with hers? You know she’s infamous in the office for that….” Neville, interested… and somehow eager.

“I request that you bring me to the doorway, when next you go there.” Zabini – so formal!

“Were you much different, when you’re small? Is that why you didn’t show us?” It’s Justin’s contribution, rising above the clamour… professionally interested; as in, I feel like a sample of something under a microscope.

And George wheedles for a chance to test his products on my child version.

_And_ Susan is _too silent_ , just staring thoughtfully at me… which might mean _many, many things_.

_All_ , because Teal’c encouraged me to come clean about what he and I did yesterday till early this morning, after a panicking and stressed Hermione tore him apart verbally… and nearly physically… when she caught us returning from our camping excursion just after dawn, with me thankfully following behind Teal’c in my adult Harry Potter morph. She accused him of “kidnapping” me for the whole day without directly informing _her_ beforehand, and I didn’t like it, so I acquiesced to Teal’c’s request during breakfast… and regret it, now, being under such bombardment.

I glare briefly at Teal’c, who is seated to my right at the dining table, munching contentedly on a buttered toast like a cow on grass, then transfer the glare first to Hermione, then to Justin.

“I _need_ some rest because of times just like _this_ , Mione,” I address the fuming bushy-haired witch, first, then point a finger at Justin while insisting, “And _you_ , I shan’t give you and George any details if you’re going to go ‘mad scientist’ on me.”

Justin _grins_ to that, unbelievably. “Where did you get the reference for mad science, Potter? Thought you’re all wizarding-like?”

I simply move the pointing finger back to Hermione, who glares sulkily back at me.

And then, before anybody can say anything else, Odi pops in with a pile of letters and ledgesrs in his arms.

“Bless you, my good elf!” I exclaim with dramatic relief, although I usually _despise_ having to do paperwork and look at reports in relation to the Houses I’m in charge of.

I grin when the elf hands the load over with a blush and a bemused smile. Then, while shouting “Thank you” to Odi, I dash out of the dining room with all alacrity.

On arriving in my bedroom, though, doing my duties to the Houses is the farthest thing in my mind, especially as Teal’c has just stepped in after me, bearing the remnants of my breakfast – plus some, it appears – on a tray.

“We need to find a way how you can send the Jaffa to me, don’t we?” I muse aloud as he sets the tray on my desk beside my pile of work. On spying his quirked eyebrow, I hastily add, “Umm. Thanks for the breakfast, by the way. You could sit wherever you want, if you’d like to stay. We can brainstorm, then. I wish Fawkes were here, so I could ask if he could fly people between planets.”

“Fawkes?” he inquires.

I open my mouth to explain. Before I can say anything, though, my ears catch the notes of a beautiful, etherial, wordless song. It plays softly at first, as if from afar, then gradually gets louder and louder, though it’s still not certain from which direction it’s coming. It’s not like my and Zabini’s singing from before, when we healed Teal’c, but in a way it’s pretty similar.

And Teal’c notices it.

“Your doing, Harry?” He looks quizzical but calm, perhaps soothed by the calming quality of the song.

“No, it’s a phoenix,” I whisper, confused but awed and increasingly ecstatic. Then I call softly to the empty space between the bed Teal’c is seated on and my own seat at the desk, “Fawkes? Is that you?”

A brilliant burst of white and yellow and orange and red fire is the answer, which then contracts into a flaming ball like the sun, which then moves slowly into shape as if an invisible sculptor were moulding some fiery clay into the figure of a bird.

And Fawkes glides there, red-golden, with fiery wings wide-spread and head held up high on an arched, slender neck, crooning joyously.

A split-second after, I’m up and hugging him with a wide, wide smile on my face, my eyes wet and burning.

“I thought you were gone,” I breathed into the feathers on his back. “I thought you went with Professor Dumbledore. Nobody ever saw you after.”

He chirps and grooms my hair. My chest aches. I miss such gesture from Hedwig, even after seven years.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I tell him. “Feel free to stay, or visit.”

Loosening my embrace, I turn him gently towards the still-quizzical-but-calm Teal’c, then, and introduce them to each other.

The phoenix looks at me sharply, deeply, when I cap the introduction by asking if he can fly from planet to planet.

Then, without any warning, he strikes forth and nips at the lobe of my left ear, drawing blood.

“ _Ow_! What–!” But he already cries on the small wound before I can complain further.

And before I can persist with the half-vocalised complaint, a voice that is neither mine nor Teal’c sounds in my mind, male and rather young and _terribly_ amused. ` _You asked me if I could fly from planet to planet,_ ` it says. ` _I assumed that, by asking about it, you would like to visit other planets. By bonding us together, I can use you or items and properties that belong to you as anchors whenever I am travelling._ `

I glare at Fawkes, who is now gliding high, far away from the reach of a startled and rather angry Teal’c. “Is that you talking in my mind, Fawkes?” I accuse the phoenix.

` _Who else?_ ` the mental voice chirps. Damn bird.

My glare intensifies. “I don’t appreciate you bonding with me without telling me.”

` _I would not be able to talk mind to mind with you if I were not bonded to you,_ ` the voice – Fawkes – sounds exasperated, now. ` _Unless if you shift to your true form, that is. But now I can also talk to those whom you are tied to, like your angry friend over there, not just to you._ `

“My true form?” I scowl. “How could you know about that? Is that a phoenix’s power – to detect a metamorph’s true form?”

Fawkes bobs his head. He says nothing to me, though, afterwards, but rather directs his beady black eyes to the glaring Teal’c.

Whose glare lessens a little, soon enough.

` _Your new friend is one stubborn and overprotective man, Harry,_ ` Fawkes grouses to me, afterwards, as he glides down to perch on my desk. ` _Or should I say, Loki Laufey-childe?_ `

“Huh?” I gape. “You know very well that I am Harry James Potter, Fawkes,” I sigh. “Have your time elsewhere muddled your memory? I thought Dumbledore talked about me, at least sometimes, with how he’s interested in my doings and all.”

` _Oh, he did,_ ` the phoenix sniffs, torn between irritation, exasperation, amusement and disgust. ` _He was **obsessed** with you, rather. Harry this, Harry that – he planned **everything** and put plans atop plans for various possible outcomes._`

My heart twinges. – I rarely thought of Dumbledore post-Voldemort, partly because Andy despised him so much. But Rita Skitter’s book – as well as Andy’s own acerbic but shrewd viewpoint about him and his actions and decisions – have shaken my faith and view on him so much. To think that I admired him so, and was proud to declare myself Dumbledore’s man before everyone who would challenge me or the old codger…. But sometimes, I wish I could return to the before-revelation period, to obliviously believe that I’ve got someone who protects me from all the ills of the world I was reentering, to have someone whom I could view as a grandfather.

` _Ignorance is bliss, isn’t it?_ ` Fawkes croons sympathetically while grooming my hair again. ` _But you must see truth, friend, or you might turn as blinded as he was._ ` He sounds sad and regretful, now. ` _Albus believed that he was doing good for the world and for you. I nearly left him numerous times. I did not because he managed to convince me to stay, and because I was yet uncertain about my own decisions, given that I was fairly young and inexperienced when I bonded with him. My mother lectured me for **years** after he died and I returned to her._`

I snort listlessly. Idly playing with a quill, I redirect the conversation back to the earlier point – the point that he _hasn’t_ touched upon. ` _Where did you come up with ‘Loki Laufey-childe’ for my name? It’s so far-fetched, even for my wildest imagination._ `

He sniffs again. ` _From you, of course. It’s imprinted on your escence. I can’t help but see. It’s more powerful than ‘Harry James Potter’, although ‘Harry’ is equal to it. Then again, mother-names are always more powerful than anything else._ `

` _I’ve got only one mother, you know, so my name is ‘Harry’, not whatever-it-is,_ ` I point out. The feather of the quil is shredded, slowly but surely, in my rising agitation. – There’s something that I’m about to know that I’m afraid to know but I _must_ know, and I don’t like it.

Fawkes seems to notice it, and sympathise with me in a way, because he rushes to say, ` _No, you are not just human, Harry. You are human, now, but you weren’t before, and that previous you surfaced recently – probably in the last few years, since I didn’t notice this while I was with Albus. I don’t know who your previous body’s mother was, but her name seems to be Laufey, judging from the form of your own name._ `

The quil breaks in my trembling hand, just so.

` _I am… a reincarnation?_ ` I venture out, with my hand now gripping the broken pieces of the quill spasmodically. The look and feel of my true form passes across the fore of my mind, then, and Fawkes acknowledges it with a mental nod.

` _That form is much more powerful than your human form, not to mention existing prior to your human form, so it makes sense that it has become your baseline form,_ ` he muses.

` _The mother of my previous self is dead, then, by now?_ ` Grief floods me, although I’ve never even known that this other woman ever existed.

` _I don’t know._ ` Fawkes flaps a wing slightly, which is apparently his version of a shrug, as he transmits a mental one to me at the same time. ` _She might be alive, still. You feel terribly young, so she might be not as old as you might think. If you would permit me, I could come in there and try to find a link that might tie you to her._ `

` _Link?_ ` I ask, while mechanically spooning porridge into my mouth from the bowl that is suddenly set in front of me.

` _Soul bond,_ ` he explains, then snorts. ` _Not what you might read in some books and magazines, however._ `

I laugh, mentally, and feel the edges of my lips twitch in a nearly irrepressible grin, despite the grief that’s still hounding me. ` _How did you know? Did Dumbledore like such reading materials? Or **you**?_`

` _Tease me more and I shall not help you,_ ` the phoenix retorts primly, so I give him the mental version of my hands-up.

` _Maybe not now, though?_ ` I remind him. ` _I still need to help Teal’c fetch his people – the Jaffa – who need help from me, and they live in other planets._ `

` _When you are more settled,_ ` he agrees. ` _But not too long, I think, or you will… what the Muggleborn like to say? Chicken out?_ `

I can’t help it. I laugh, both mentally and out-loud. ` _Yes,_ ` I tell him. ` _I wonder, though, why not ‘bird out’?_ `

He sends me a double dose of mental and physical glare, then flicks his tail at me as he turns away to address Teal’c… who is apparently still seated on the bed and has discreetly fed me the rest of my breakfast.

` _Now,_ ` he announces pointedly, perhaps due to me still chuckling softly, ` _let us talk about the Jaffa that need **our** help, Teal’c of Chulak. I have linked the three of us together, so we can hear what each of us say to the others._`

And with that, I gladly set aside my newfound personal issues.


	22. Farewell

Credit to: the fanfiction _Post-Apocaliptic Potter from a Parallel Universe_ by **Burnable** , for the stasis disks – but minus the embedded Portkey, since Hermione was in a hurry, in this story

Kairo, 7th November 2003

“I buried a set of transporter rings here,” Arga explains as she waves Hermione’s hand at the expanse of sun-baked sand just outside Kairo. “It was meant for my ship, but anyone can make use of it if they know where they are going.”

“Well, this is it, then?” Susan looks round as she wipes sweat – yet again – from her brow. “I can’t say I’m impressed with this city. It’s too hot, for one, even with a Cooling Charm.”

“Pansy,” Justin teases her.

“Oh, Morgana, not that snooty girl!” she shudders.

“You know what I meant.” He pokes at her ribs, causing her to squeal and flee to where I’m standing with Teal’c, a few yards away.

“Bored with Justin?” I smile wanly at her.

“Irritated, more likely,” she sniffs, then put an arm round my shoulders. “Cheer up, Harry. We did all we can. Teal’c will take care of himself till we meet again, isn’t that right, Teal’c?”

“It is,” the stoic man nods. “I shall never remove the necklace that you gave me, Harry, and make use of the items as needed.”

The necklace – the mokeskin pouch that Hagrid gave me in what feels like forever ago, which some geniuses among the Residents turned into a bottomless storage years ago, as one of their gifts to me. And I bound it to Teal’c’s use only, yesterday, as the whole group staying at Black Lodge brainstormed about his safety and how we could help his people. Currently, it’s filled with ready meals and various beverages fit to feed an army courtesy of my own army of house-elves, crates of topical potions that the elves helped buy from various stores after Justin had confirmed – via little experiments on Teal’c – as benefitial to a Jaffa, one of the pair of Vanishing Cabinets that Malfoy Jr. used to smuggle the Death Eaters into Hogwarts during our sixth year that was hastily configured to be enlarged and shrunken by a Muggle, my own communication mirror that I repaired and linked to the one I found among Remus’ belongings, a few memory crystals for English language, a bunch – I don’t know how many – of stasis disks that Hermione made with runed crystal disks which a Muggle just needs to tap to activate, and my own portable flat that I modified to be a series of bedrooms stuffed literally to the ceiling with bunkbeds and hammocks.

I sigh, and let Susan manoeuvre me to hug him. “We already put plans upon plans,” she points out. “We literally _can’t_ do more, except if Teal’c just stays here. But if Teal’c stays here, then his family is in danger, and he can’t help the others. And you promised that you were going to try to save them all, Harry.”

I huff against Teal’c’s stomach, just a little farther up from his prim’ta pouch, which he allowed Justin to take a sample of yesterday, while I talked to the little larva so it wouldn’t freak out too much. Susan is just repeating what I know _and understand_ , but now I find that understanding doesn’t equal acceptance.

Maybe I should’ve realised that, when Andy and Teddy and Hannah died, months ago.

And now, someone else who has so quickly become a close friend – a new _family member_ , even – must leave, too, while neither of us know when – or _if_ – he can return.

“Be safe?” I whisper at last, more pleading and plaintive than I would like to sound, while Susan is already back with Justin and bothering him, and while Luna calls from farther away that she, George and Zabini have found “the boring giant rings.”

A pair of large hands land softly at either side of my head and shake it a little from side to side, humorously.

I chuckle wetly and tighten my arms round him for a moment. “Keep Teal’c safe,” I tell the little larva in his belly, meanwhile. “I shall see the two of you again some time, hopefully soon.”

And then Teal’c and I are off, jogging towards where the three sand-sifters are gathered.

“You must leave this place completely and erase your tracks before I activate the transporter rings,” the man reiterates what he has been saying a few times during the planning sessions, as the eight of us humans – plus the three Black Lodge house-elves whom I have just summoned, who wish to say good bye to “Master Teal’c” – are gathered round him and the series of large metal rings embedded on the bedrock a few feet down.

“We understand, big man,” George smiles. “Good luck out there.” He shakes Teal’c’s hand in rare solemnity.

“We’ll miss you, Harry most of all,” Luna pipes in in her usual frank manner as she squeezes in between Zabini and Justin to give him a bear hug. “We’ll take good care of your wife and son. We’ll take good care of your people, too, whether we’ll manage to extend their lives or not.”

“I’ll be working on the substitution with Potter and Granger,” Justin reiterates his promise.

“I’m sorry I didn’t manage to help you when you were first brought in,” Hermione, now her own self, does the same… with her apology, though she doesn’t tag on a promise to retrieve his gear, this time, perhaps not wanting _all of us_ to lecture her once more.

“Well, it’s been quite an experience,” Zabini shrugs when our eyes land on them. “Don’t go telling anybody anything about us, though. The guard we put round your mind should suffice, but you must contact us immediately if–.”

“I think he got it, Zabini,” Hermione huffs.

Zabini glares at her. Before they can bicker with each other _again_ , though, Susan thankfully jumps in. Elbowing Luna aside, half playfully, she hugs the dazed-looking Teal’c – or maybe he’s just confused… or overwhelmed… – and proclaims that she’s eager to meet and learn from fellow warriors that he might send us.

“Maybe they could teach the Residents too, Harry?” Neville joins in thoughtfully.

“Well, that’s for later,” I shrug. “Let’s not jump ahead too far.”

Then, after a last hug that _Teal’c_ offers to me, I hurriedly usher my friends away from the thing that will bring him away until we don’t know when, so that I’m not tempted to stay. Zabini quickly drops behind to erase our tracks as we jog away, and I wish I got the task.

But then again, if I did, I might _join Teal’c_ instead.

As it is, I daren’t turn my head round, even for a slightest peek.

And I’m the more miserable for it.

“Cheer up, Harry. Now you can prepare better for him,” George says as he drags me onward, huffing and puffing under both the exertion and the beating sun.

“You can travel round the world, too, so you needn’t think so much of the time,” Hermione, who’s gripping my other arm, pipes in… all too cheerfully, although with her own wheezing firmly in place.

“Why are you dragging me–,” I begin.

But then, faintly but sharply heard behind us, what might be the transporter rings activate.

I slump in my captors’ hold, while they drag me onward more urgently.

Luna, jogging behind George, pats my back consolingly. “We’ll see him again, and he’ll give us many friends in the meantime.”

And Susan, jogging right behind me, joins in quietly, “It’s a good reason to live well, till then, right?”


	23. Merry-Not Christmas

Warnings for: depression, mild swearing

Baker Street no. 221B, 25th December 2003

“Harry….”

“Hmm?”

“How long have you stayed in here?”

“Dunno.”

“Do you know what date it is?”

“No.”

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“Studying, Mione, as you can see. Now let me be, all right? I need to finish this before Slughorn comes to test me.”

“Harry….”

“What?”

“It’s not healthy. You told me once.”

“What’s not healthy?”

“ _This_!”

“Ow! Be louder, will you?”

“I _shall_ , if you don’t leave now and greet _your people_. They’ve been missingn you!”

“Ow! What’s wrong with you, Mione? It’s _studying_. You never stopped anybody from studying. And this is an _important_ study, you know. – Ow! Don’t hit me!”

“Harry, today is _Christmas_. Slughorn will be busy with his own parties.”

“Oh? Oh. Oh. Merry Christmas, Mione.”

“Harry!”

“Awww. Don’t shout in my ear!”

“I shall do _worse_ to you if you don’t get your bum off that chair and move it to the fireplace, _right now_.”

“Bossy.”

“By count of three. One… two… _three_.”

“Hey! I’m not a balloon! Put me down! – Where did you bannish my book to? It’s a rare volume! What will I tell Slughorn if I lost his prized book?”

I flail about midair, sans the tome about exotic poisons and how to battle them that I’ve been reading, while an incensed Hermione marches me out of my bedroom, which doubles as my lab and study.

And, in the living room of the generously sized flat in London that I rented when I began my potions mastery, our ridiculous procession is met by _Zabini_ , of all people.

Who clearly looks _entertained_ with my plight.

Although, thankfully, they say nothing to me, whether a comment or an insult… or an insulting comment. They just turn round, _Insendio_ the logs in the fireplace, throw what looks like the Floo powder into the healthy blaze, then blandly announce, “The Black Farm,” just before stepping into the now-green fire.

Hermione lets my feet touch the carpeted floor, then. But before I can return to my little slice of… well, little slice of life, she already wraps me in a bear hug.

A _strong_ bear hug.

Which she then uses to drag me towards the fireplace, with its green flame still snapping here and there.

“Whoa! Hey!” I squawk. “Why’re you bringing me there? There’s nothing there. And since when did you become so strong?”

She shoves the two of us into the flame before I can close my mouth, and snaps out the same destination before I manage to get my bearing.

As the result, the spinning vortex of fireplaces hits my elbow repeatedly. And my shoulders, too, and my bum, and the back of my head….

Damned witch.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 25th December 2003

My “spectacular” exit out of the fireplace – coughing and flailing and failing to stay upright, bringing Hermione down with me – is greeted by utter silence.

It wouldn’t be eerie if there’s indeed nobody to greet us.

But, through my watering eyes, I can see at least a handful of people – humans and house-elves alike – stuffed into the not-so-big room, all gawking at _me_.

“What?” I protest, then curl up, coughing up all the contents of my lungs, it feels.

“Were you trying to kill them, Granger?” Zabini’s voice sounds above me. They sound just as bland as they looked, but I can detect a hint of steel in it, even through my own coughs and protesting lungs.

“Wha–. Why’d you say _that_?” she grumps. “It’s his own fault for speaking when we’re Flooing!” She sounds above me, too, so she’s managed to pick herself up after the tumble out of the fireplace.

“And why were they speaking when you were Flooing?” The steel is more apparent, now.

And Hermione seems to pick it up, at last, because she sounds even more exasperated, with a touch of defensiveness thrown in, as she claims that I seemed confused and wouldn’t stop talking.

Great. What a day you have, Potter. Thrown out of your peaceful study only to end up being gawked at by a bunch of people _and_ coughing up your lungs _and_ having to listen to your kidnappers quarrel above your head….

Fortunately _for me_ , a “fresh-faced” potions apprentice that I am, I’ve got quite a few potions ready in my pocket at any time, including presently.

Unfortunately _for my kidnappers_ , one of the potions is my own version of a refined dungbomb, which not only smells bad and creates severe disorientation but also generates a thick oily fog.

A damned hard-to-disperse thick, oily fog, which was the side effect of one of my experiments which I turned into _this_ weapon.

Then, in the cacophonous confusion that follows, I reach out to the wards round the place, make a hole for myself among their wefts, and Apparate through the little thing.

Black Island, 25th December 2003

Black Island is the _single_ most well-kept secret of the House of Black. The portrait of Lord Arcturus Black the Second even claimed that not all Lords of the House were priveleged to know about this secret, which is tied to the _sentient_ signet ring of the House… that not _all_ of the so-called “lords” could actually wear on their respective fingers, too. The ring chooses the bearer of the secret itself, and the said bearer cannot tell anybody else but fellow bearers, living or otherwise.

I found this out at Black Castle just after Teal’c was gone, when I was trying to distract myself from thoughts and worries about him, by bothering the portraits of the Blacks of the past that hung there. Lord Arcturus the Second found out that I was Lord Black but didn’t wear the ring, whether on my finger as it is proper or round my neck on a necklace if I got rejected. His ranting was… of epic proportion.

I then told him that I was _terribly_ leery of a sentient piece of anything, especially one that would remain on my person until I die or pass the lordship to another bearing Black blood. And he retorted that I should be leery of the ring if I meant ill to the House and its members without any good reason.

The debate raged on from that point.

And the old _painted_ codger won it. Embarrassing.

He even rubbed his victory over me by demanding that I claim the ring right before his painted eyes.

And the ring did settle round my left middle finger. – Oh how he crowed….

Thankfully the somebody in the ring isn’t chatty or controlling, the ring itself is the boring type of a smallish black stone – as in sapping all light black – bound by a thin but strong band of silvery metal, and I got this island in the bargain.

It’s not a bad island, at that, although reachable only by Portkey – the ring – and warded seemingly down to every inch of ground and every puff of air, with how saturated with magic it feels. It’s a rich, expansive piece of hidden, unplottable real estate, certainly, which features landscapes such as a small mountain, a huge lake on top of it, hills, three rivers and many more streams and countless brooks, sandy and rocky beaches, lush and wild-looking sections of forest, smaller but equally lush and wild-looking sections of grassy plain, formidable cliffs and interesting caves…. Well, the list goes on and on, it feels, growing more and more each time I visit, and now’s only the third. I’m not really in the mood of exploring, though, so the list mightn’t be added on, this time.

Instead of looking round, I make a beeline to the house – or rather, _hut_ – that serves as shelter for whoever visiting here, which perches on a small grassy hill overlooking a black sandy beach with calm water and, far off to the sea, a thin but long line of jagged and fearsome-looking black, glistening reef.

When I first laid eyes on the hut, which is a tiny, simple affair of thatched roof and rough wooden walls with exotic, earthen-coloured woven cloths as door “panels” and window “panes,” I thought it was an illusion. How not? It looks even humbler and much more mundane than _the Burrow_! And I bet it’s been like that since the start, judging by the _fearsomely strong_ preservation ward that has saturated every fibre and every milimetre of the little home.

When I first went past the front door “panel,” therefore breaking the illusion if there’s any, I was even more floored. Almost literally. Because the floor’s only _packed dirt_. The single room in there was filled with very, very simple and sparse furniture, too, and it stays till now. – A large divan woven from rushes and supported by halved logs lies perpendicular to the left of the front door, set beside a large window that overlooks the beach. A rough-hewn multifunction wooden table stands between the super-minimalistic bed and the kitchen corner, with two equally rough-hewn wooden stools stowed underneath it. The kitchen corner itself, which extends beyond the table till the back door that’s in line with the front one, features another large window, a fire pit with a stout chimney above it, a clay stove nearby, a collection of clay pots and pans and wooden utensils, and a small, rough-hewn wooden chest containing wooden eating wares. And… that’s all.

I can’t imagine even _Ron_ staying in this place, let alone Malfoy Jr.

It’s pretty homey, though, and – even more importantly – airy, with two more windows set above the table and opposite it between the back and front doors.

For one who spent his entire childhood in either a small cupboard or a small, heavily locked and barred room, It’s _perfect_.

It’s peacefully silent, too, but for the endless sounds of the forest and the sea and the occasional wind. Nobody is here unless I personally bring them here. Nothing additional is here unless I bring it myself here.

Undemanding. Uncluttered. Safe. Free.

I shuck off the slippers that I’ve been wearing, then stretch out on the divan facing the window that I open with the flick of a hand.

A stretch of rippling, deep blue water greets me beyond the grass and the black sand, backdropped by a row of sharp, jagged, glistening spikes like the teeth of a massive sea monster, which ironically protects the calm heaven from the huge, vicious waves beyond. Here, the sun is setting, and the yellow-orange-red-purple fire spreading on the horizon beyond the waves, surrounded by the calm, deepening blue of the sky, makes the view even more… wow; just _wow_.

It’s a surreal view to me, since I never witnessed the sun sinking into the sea before in my life, but definitely _wow_ , and the gusts of cool, damp, saltwater-smelling sea breeze that buffet my face just now make it _real_.

I wish I could share this view with my friends.

I wish I could share it with Andy and Teddy, even more.

And _Teal’c_.

Damn you, Teal’c.


	24. A New Purpose

Black Island, 26th December 2003

Crying myself to sleep was something that I hadn’t done since I was seven and brought home excellent marks at school only to be punished severely by the Dursleys. It’s freeing, though, admitedly. Now I _think_ I’m ready to face the world again.

An _Aguamenti_ into one of the small wooden bowls from the chest of eating paraphernalia provides me a clean bowl and equally clean water to drink. A set of cleaning and grooming charms freshen me up for the day, from cleaning my body and clothes to straightening my rumpled pyjamas – no touching my hair, as it’s just as unruly as ever in this form. I even managed to wheedle the body-waste-removal spells from Justin when I tagged along as he took care of the newly rescued Teal’c, and use them gladly now because I know that there’s no loo here.

Now, time to make something for my people, humans and elves alike, both as apology for my absence and continuation of my annual gift-giving tradition.

Black Sanctuary, 26th December 2003

“Where were you, Harry? We searched _everywhere_! Why did you–.”

“Somewhere, Mione.”

“Did you have yourself checked after that Floo ride, Potter? And I mean by _medical professional_ , not yourself.”

“Nope. No need, Justin. Look. I’m fine.”

“But you weren’t….”

“I’m really fine, Luna. Look, I’ve got you a mini snorkak. Wittled it myself. Sorry it’s a little lopsided.”

“Harry!”

“What, Mione?”

“Honestly, can’t you just _focus_ on something?”

I freeze, and slowly turn towards her, buying myself more time. I’m _confused_. Yesterday, she and Zabini dragged me to spend some time with everyone, and now I’m spending my time with _everyone_. What does she want, now?

I ask her just that.

And she gets _angrier_.

“Honestly, Mione,” I huff, then sighs, even more confused and tired. “I don’t know what you want.”

I finish giving my carvings to the seven that were with me at Black Lodge and Kairo with Teal’c, even Zabini, then skedaddle to the hidden homes of the Residents here at Black Sanctuary, to borrow an owl to send more carvings to Bill and his family.

It’s gift-giving time for the Residents, afterwards, and then I spend some wild time playing a chaotic game of ball with some of them in the woodland clearing that they use for gatherings. It’s a little bit like football, really, but without goalies, and the person managing to dribble the ball the longest with their feet is _supposed_ to be the winner.

We end up not watching who might be the winner, though.

But it’s fun!

I prepare to go back to my flat on Baker Street no. 221B pretty energised and uplifted.

Well, part of it… maybe… is because I don’t visit the main house in the Sanctuary – where the eight of us Hogwarts 1991 yearmates plus one were firstly gathered – before leaving.

I just… can’t. Not now.

I’m running away, perhaps. But, well, _I don’t care_.

Baker Street no. 221B, 26th December 2003

**Hello, Professor Slughorn,  
I hope you like the carving. I wittled it myself, from some wood I found on my back yard. I hope you are enjoying your holiday too.  
My apologies in advance, Professor. I admit I’m writing you now also to propose another way to continue my apprenticeship to you without harming other things and people in my life. I highly appreciate you teaching me despite my once again unfavourable reputation in the eyes of the Ministry and the public. But yesterday my friends reminded me that I’ve got them and my other responsibilities too. I need to take care of them just as much as I need to master potions.  
I hope you understand, Professor. I look forward to discussing this with you after the holidays. But please tell me before you drop by. I don’t stay much in the flat anymore.  
Warmest regards,  
Harry Potter**

I look over the letter once more, then slip it into an envelope with a slow exhale. “Kreacher,” I address the house-elf standing patiently beside my chair, “could you pop this to Slughorn’s desk? Thanks.”

I look round my bedroom at the flat when I’m alone once more. I admit, I don’t know what to do, now. This little slice in London _should_ have been like a home to me, since I’ve been spending so much time here, studying and practising for my potions mastery, but… well….

I don’t even remember what are the names of the old couple who own this quaint building.

I guess, it’s time to change venues _again_. Who knows, I might really find a home.

Black Island, 26th December 2003

It’s ironic that, among all the properties available to me not only through birthright but also conquest and bequests, and with the near-unlimited fund that I seem to possess, I return to the airy, simplistic, quaint hut in Black Island.

I hope it’s not because the damned ring gave me a subconscious nudge.

I’m here again, in any case, and it’s morning over the island.

Now, what should I do? I don’t want to lie about all day watching the sea; I’m not that kind of person, by nature and nurture; but everything seems to have gone flat again after my earlier bustle, packing and cleaning up my flat and returning the keys to the old couple downstairs.

The breeze feels quite nice, though, in such a hot, humid morning….

I’m only aware that I’ve been rubbing the stone embedded on the ring when I stop and, yawning, fall asleep between one exhale and the next.

**O-O-O-O**

Seeing the side of a naked, black-skinned thigh after rolling round on a bed while trying to wake up feels very, very, very familiar. The only differences are the humid heat and the hard, uneven surface I’ve been sleeping on.

“Teal’c?” I slur out with effort. My body feels really heavy and lethargic, just like before, after Zabini and I healed Teal’c. But… Teal’c isn’t here, is he…?

But if it’s not Tealc….

_Danger_.

I sit up quickly, viciously fighting against sleepiness and heavy listlessness and severe dizziness, and strike out blindly to where I saw the patch of skin with a fist. “Who are you!”

My fist meets thin air.

But I do not fall, though I have overextended myself.

A large, male body with hard, bulging muscles, garbed only in a loincloth, catches me mid-lunge, and holds me close.

“Peace, child,” he murmurs, in a voice even deeper than Tealc’s… but sort of similar.

Then again, when I look up and manage to focus my eyes a little sans my specs, I can see the outline of a face similar to Teal’c’s, just… rougher.

“Who are you?” I demand in a lower voice, while struggling to free myself despite my pounding and spinning head and heavy, trembling muscles.

And, “Black,” he proclaims quietly. The rumbling voice reverberates on his chest, travelling to my own as I am still pressed flush against him.

“Black… which Black?” I huff. “There are many Blacks.”

“And none living who bears the name, now,” he remarks sadly.

I stiffen. “You’re a Horcrux, aren’t you? Are you stored in the ring?”

“Yes and no,” he returns, ponderously, while seating himself on the side of the bed and holding my wriggling self on his lap. “I am… a state between what you know of ‘Horcrux’ and ‘wizarding portrait’. I am an imprint that can interact with the world at large in a physical level, as long as there is enough ambient magic around, and the current Lord or Lady Black possesses an adequate level of magic stored in him to… ‘start me up’. I do so only when the Lord or Lady needs me thus, however, _and_ if I wish to indulge him or her.”

“And I didn’t ask you to come out,” I snipe back.

And to that, he… bops my nose…!

“Be polite to your ancestor, child,” he admonishes gently, while I stare disbelievingly at him.

“I’m not a child, you know,” I tell him in my level-most tone.

“Yes, you are still, inside,” he cuts in before I can continue. “It is not shameful, child. Besides, you do not need to ‘put on airs’ before me.”

I snort. The colloquialism sounds strange when he uses it, even stranger than the more technical colloquialism from his previous words. But he might bop my nose again if I put that observation into a comment.

“Let me go,” I sigh, in the end, not finding any argument to offer and not willing to indulge in any more quips.

And, _surprisingly_ , he _does_. He loosens up his arms and deposits me himself on the divan beside him, with an arm still slung over my shoulders.

“Must you be attached to me all the time?” I complain, knowing very well that I am sulking but not caring one bit about it at present, since, as he pointed out, we’re alone, after all.

And he seems to… indulge me, as he said, for he confesses with a shameless smirk quite audible in his voice, “No, but I do enjoy positive physical interaction, which I seldom experienced in my life and even after. Most of my descendents were sadly rather… stuffy.”

I burst out into snickers. I can’t help it! His words bring to the fore of my mind the image of this black-skinned, rugged, tough, gigantic hunk of a nearly naked man hugging a Lucius Malfoy lookalike to his side like he does me.

I shake my head, ignoring the heavy and spinning sensations that stubbornly linger inside my skull, and sputter again when the image persists to perch before my mind’s eye. “Your fault,” I accuse him breathlessly in-between bouts of snickers. To emphasise the point, I dig my elbow into his side.

And he _laughs_ , with genuine mirth apparent in each booming sound… and I cannot help but like him a little; Horcrux or not, life-force thief or not.

He doesn’t behave like Tom Riddle in our encounter near the end of my second year at Hogwarts, anyway.

And he’s just _made me laugh_.

I don’t know when last I snickered so….

“Thank you,” I whisper at last.

He pats the top of my head gently and smiles. “It is why I materialised, child. Now, tell me, what are you going to do with this island of mine? You haven’t thought of anything about it yet, and I nearly considered myself offended with such oversight.”


	25. A Lesson in Planning and Responsibility

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 27th December 2003

“Fawkes?”

I freeze at my desk, in the middle of – _at last_ – planning out what to do with all the empty properties that have been passed over to me by various means; something that Andy didn’t manage to push me to do till the day she… joined her husband and daughter. I’ve just escaped Black’s chatter, stories and pestering by Portkeying to Grimmauld. And now a ball of ffire has just materialised over the desk, nearly burning my sheave of notes, and doesn’t have the decency to greet me first or at least wait till it looks more like a bird than a mini sun before berating me.

“Shouldn’t you be with Teal’c?” I grump back when the damned bird pauses in the middle of his tirade. Well, it’s our plan, at least: Fawkes will go with Teal’c and shaddow the latter invisibly – as in staying in the In-between that he said phoenixes use to travel or to wait – until he needs to carry Teal’c’s precious cargo of rescued Jaffa to me. I also _begged_ him to protect Teal’c as much as he could without jeopardising himself or Teal’c even more… and now he’s _here_ , not with his protectee.

` _Well, I was!_ ` the bird shouts exasperatedly, _in my head_. I wince and glare at him. But he continues before I can launch my own vicious complaint: ` _I have been trying to reach you **ten times**. Do you know how tiring it is to travel back and forth between **star systems**? Be glad that I did not have to travel between **galaxies** or I would have pecked your eyes out – bonded or no bonded!_`

I flinch back. “But I was available all the time!”

` _You were in a space warded against all beings, **including** phoenixes!_`

“Oh. The island,” I mumble, slumping. “Black Island. Apparently it’s really _just_ me who can go there.”

Fawkes squawks, surprised… and intrigued. I snort, rescue my notes and put them in a satchel I’ve just transfigured from my well-abused pen, then rise reluctantly to my feet.

Before I can beckon him to me to ride the Portkey along to Black Island, though, I notice the tiny wooden block clutched in one of his talons. “Is that…. Are the Jaffa in there?” I breathe, slumping back into my chair. Because it’s one of our plans to retrieve the people Teal’c means us to help, _too_ : Teal’c will store the Jaffa that he’d like to rescue, after they’ve been put into stasis with the stasis disks that Hermione made and produced, in the shrinkable portable-flat trunk which I converted into a series of space-efficient dorm rooms, and he will send the trunk to me _only_ if it’s full.

And… the _still_ -grumpy bird bobs his head. ` _It took some time for us to find who needed to be rescued **and** those who wouldn’t jeopardise you and your people. I did most of the work, naturally._`

“Naturally,” I mutter, while prying the miniaturised trunk from his talon.

And… his other talon digs into my skin. “Ow! Stop it, bird!”

` _Most of the Jaffa that fit the criteria of the rescue are faithful to the Goa’uld that command them, even if the Goa’uld only hold the position of underlings to Apophis, and even if they are already on the brink of death,_ ` he continues blithely, ignoring my own squawk, though his tone is more serious than I would imagine. ` _Teal’c wanted me to save them all and find a way to break their blind loyalty to those they regard as gods once they are here. I said no. I picked the most neutral ones, and the most in need._ `

` _By the way,_ ` he adds dryly, ` _you should send twice the load of the stasis disks when I return to Teal’c. He is determined to save as many as he can when he can spend some time on his homeworld. By this time next year, Earth might as well be flooded with Jaffa refugees from Chulak and elsewhere…._ `

“Were there that many Jaffa who couldn’t carry prim’ta anymore?” I stare at him, truly puzzled. “How many are the Jaffa under Apophis, anyway? Or did you branch out to those under different Goa’uld? Teal’c never told me….”

He shakes himself from head to tail. ` _Many,_ ` he admits, sounding concerned. ` _Hundreds of thousands, at least, under Apophis alone, from what I glimpsed. Spanning a few hundreds of star systems. They are all slaves who **believe** in their masters and torturers. Their families, as well. And this includes dying slowly from lack of prim’ta for any reason. It is fortunate that there are not so many Jaffa who need an alternative for the lack of a prim’ta. But still, this could have been prevented a long time ago, before it got this big. I wish the Council would pay attention to the little details, sometimes, instead of just getting us to police or roam the whole universe._`

“The Council?” I’m made even more baffled… and definitely _worried_.

He shakes his tail at me. ` _Not now, Harry. Maybe later, if we have time. Have you come up with a way to replace the prim’ta dependence with something far healthier and much more independent? And what about the stasis disks?_ `

I shake my head dejectedly, while avoiding looking at even his shadow.

` _You have been sulking, haven’t you?_ ` he sighs.

I shake my head again. – Well, not sulking indeed. I just… missed Teal’c. And Black _already_ lectured me about not appreciating the loved ones that I’ve already got here, only pining for one who is far away, and I _needn’t_ any more lecture, especially from someone who has _also_ been absent all this time.

Sadly, Fawkes _still_ buffets me with one wing and lectures me.

Black Island, 27th December 2003

And Fawkes _still_ lectures me even after I have deposited him and the still-miniaturised trunk on the island, before introducing him to Black – the first of the House of Black, an African warrior mage, born and growing into adulthood without a name but the appelation based on his colouring that he shared with many, enslaved to Ra the Goa’uld for much of his life, saviour of Arga, Egeria and a few other breeding -capable children of Ra that Ra had been hunting and _eating_ to kull the _possible_ threats they posed, an entity who has been living in his own ring since then.

I leave them to exchange… whatever they’re exchanging so excitedly, respectively in rumbling words and chirps, while also respectively seated and perched on the grass in front of the hut under the twilit sky of Black Island.

Now, I’m going to rectify a few problems.

Eh. There’s no more potant motivation than being lectured endlessly by a fire-generating bird and a semi-living former slave who founded the most snooty House that I’ve ever known….

**O-O-O-O**

Well, unfortunately, I have to report bad news to both Fawkes and Black: None of my friends _remembered_ to try to come up with something for the Jaffa’s compromised immune system with the lack of a prim’ta, while _I myself_ worked only on my potions mastery _and not anything else_ all this time.

` _Teal’c would consider this a massive breech of trust, Harry,_ ` Fawkes observes at the end of my confession.

I wince. “No need to tell me that,” I grouse half-heartedly, hunching over myself. – Teal’c _cried with relief_ because he _believed_ that I could help him, that I would _do my best_ to help him, and I _forgot_. He should’ve made me vow to help him, like I made Zabini do, twice, when I asked them to help him….

But… Zabini…. There _might_ be something that we can do, Zabini and I, if what we did with Teal’c is anything to go by. After all, we had to repair nearly half of his entire body. Writing over the compromised immune system is entirely different, I know; more thorough and more delicate, for one; but the Song seemed to be quite versatile and intuitive….

“The magic of this island will help boost you for the healing,” Black points out when I tell him and Fawkes my idea. “However, you must lead the ritual, because the magic will obey only you. Before that, you must consciously give consent for the specific Goa’uld to be here, or your patients will not survive after you have retrieved them from that little box. Your tacit permission – and the fact that the box was on your person, then – saved the whole shipment from incineration, once the Portkey touched the protection around this island, but the leeway stops once they touch anything but the inside of the box. With your _specific_ words of welcome…. – Harry?”

I straightened up with a gasp on the word “insineration,” and now I’m staring at him, goggle-eyed and so, so, so nauseated.

I nearly killed _all_ the Jaffa that Teal’c has _entrusted_ to me from sheer _carelessness_. – I _knew_ that there’s protection round this island, extending up and below, both from my own senses and what the ring passed on to me when I first came here. I _could have_ asked Black about the details of the protection, since my study of wards and warding has been set aside all too often all these months, and he _is_ a part of this island, anyway. But I _didn’t_. And who knows how many Jaffa could have been burnt alive while they’re in stasis… or _cooked alive slowly_ , if the stasis state prevented them from direct physical harm.

I didn’t even ask Fawkes how many he and Teal’c managed to stuff into this box.

_Damn you_ , Harry Potter.

Fawkes squawks when I rush to my feet and stumble over him. Black cries out in concern when I run away blindly, tripping on my own feet. But I must go, go, go, go _away_.

Ha. I don’t even manage to reach the treeline before I double over and throw up _hard_. Loud sobs that may be my own ring in the sudden silence of the nightly noise, but I can’t care less about it presently.

I nearly caused who knows how many people to die slowly and agonisingly, instead of helping them to avoid that very fate.

I deserve _more_ than some self-perpetrated public humiliation.

**O-O-O-O**

“You are young still, and moorless. Andromeda Black did her best to prepare you, from what I glimpsed in your mind, but the both of you were distracted with many other concerns. Now that you know the _possible_ consequence of carelessness, you should be able to take better precautions. It does not mean that you will never be able to enjoy life or plan some spontaneous events, however. The little things in life are what keep you surviving to reach a better place, sometimes. Now let me tell you about the life of a slave boy who never knew who were his parents, but ended up claiming an island for himself and his family….”

Black drones on and on and on in his deep, rumbling voice. – He asked me what was wrong, what I was thinking, and listened as I blubbered. And he has me on his lap and in his arms, now, rocked back and forth like a little child while my tears and snot bathe his bare chest, and while he narrates the ups and downs of his own life for the second time in our acquaintanceship. Fawkes sings calmingly in the background, as he perches on Black’s head, and occasionally swipes the tip of a wing gently over my own head.

I feel quite embarrassed of my own conduct, as I begin to be more aware of where I am and what I am doing, with my tears and emotions gradually wrung dry.

“You needed to ‘let go’ sometimes, especially when you are with your trusted people and in a safe environment. You tried to do too many things, and kept all the thoughts and emotions inside, distracting yourself in the end,” Black chides when I open my mouth once more after who knows how long crying like a baby. “I told you, you are safe here. Except, if you do not trust Fawkes, after all?”

I gurgle a short laugh, which unexpectedly wring some more leakage. “He said he’d peck my eyes out if I’m unreachable, next time,” I confide in a croaky whisper.

His dark eyes twinkle with laughter, although he warns me solemnly to be careful of what and whom I am bringing to the island, especially if I wish to “let them loose” here.

“Now, no more talk of lordly plans, child, and let us get you to bed,” he chides me once more when I’m about to respond, continuing the brainstorming session that I interrupted. Then, before I can deny being tired or escape his embrace, I suddenly find myself inside the hut and on the divan, with him still cradling me close and Fawkes still perched on his head.

“You need a clear head and a clear heart to decide well, and sleep will clear everything for you,” he lectures while releasing me from his arms and pushing me gently to lie down. “So sleep, stubborn one. Fawkes and I shall guard your dreams.”

I slip into oblivion faster than I would have thought, despite my reluctance. And Black keeps his promise, apparently, for I am visited by no dreams at all.


	26. The Song, Revisited

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 28th December 2003

“I am flattered, Potter.” Zabini’s tone is drier than the desert.

“Huh?” I am taken aback. I asked them to give me tips and perhaps provide a few practise sessions to use the Song, so that I will be able to lead a healing attempt on one of the Jaffa, to see if he can be independent of the prim’ta this way, and this is what they–?

“That you thought me so highly.” The prat completes the statement with a Teal’c-worthy raised eyebrow, breezily – and _knowingly_ , it seems – cutting through my inner rant.

Eh. I’m just _more_ confused. “But you did that on Teal’c! I just tagged along. I didn’t even know I could do that.”

“And what did you think of ‘that’?” The other eyebrow joins the first, high up on the prat’s high brow. What a punchable look….

“Complicated, certainly, and new, and unknown to me, so that’s why I followed you, and that’s why I asked you just now,” I grump, crossing my arms on my chest and leaning against the wall of their self-claimed bedroom at Grimmauld. Dealing with Zabini always makes me tired, exasperated, irritated and confused, all in one, and now is _not_ the exception, unfortunately.

_And_ , instead of answering, they imitate me down to my no-doubt grumpy look, while leaning against the headboard of their bed… and it’s all that I can do to keep myself from stomping a foot childishly, as well as hiding my chagrin and embarrassment. – My, do I look _that_ childish? No wonder they like to tease me so much, and Black treats me like a child…. Huh. I _must_ be careful to display my “lordliness” before the Jaffa or, sent by Teal’c and Fawkes or not, they will figuratively… or perhaps even literally… stomp all over me.

But _right now_ , I’ve got other concerns to pursue.

“All right,” I drawl, hopefully in a more sophisticated way than Malfoy Jr. “At least teach me the basics. I’ll do it my way, then.”

They lose all the air of mocking playfulness, just so.

I straighten up, myself. “So?”

“So, you don’t understand,” they sigh. “No, listen.” They raise a hand before I can speak. “The Song is the words of _your soul_ , Potter. Your very escence, eternal as your life is not. Are you going to just _play_ with your _soul_? Let alone _others’_!” They regard me with deadly intensity, then. “The Milaðen have been studying the Song for countless generations, _millions_ of years, but until now they still discover something new… and not always desirable, although it is within their makeup – _our_ makeup – whether understood or not. I took a _very, very, very big risk_ when I helped you, that time, and my father would _definitely_ not approve of what I did… although they might understand why I did it.”

“Our makeup?” I parrot, flabbergasted. My mind snags on that point and lags behind the rest of their passionate statement.

They look scornfully at me, still. “Don’t pretend to be ignorant, Potter. You’re an aweful liar.”

“I _really_ don’t know what you’re talking about!” I snap back, indignant.

They roll their eyes, losing their utter seriousness but diverting their intensity to… something else; something that makes them look totally unreadable. “Change, now, please,” they… _request_ , in a suddenly quiet, level tone.

Creepy. It’s as if there are two of them inside one body.

Creepier than Hermione and Arga, even, and in that madwoman there are _indeed_ two people!

I roll my own eyes. “What for?” I demand warily. “Into what?”

“Your true self.”

“You’re asking awefully much of me, Zabini,” I scowl.

They shake their head. “You, too. That is not the point, though. I…. If you changed, I could prove something almost undeniably, and it might help you as well.”

“You swear?” It’s my turn to stare sharply and intently at them.

And they do swear it, in the same way as they did before healing Teal’c and as they helped make Hermione/Arga promise to be silent about Teal’c and his people.

Well.

I relax my figurative magical muscles, let my whole being flow fluidly back into the shape that it recognises as its foundation, though I stop it before it can shift further and turn me into a little child.

“Happy, now?” I bite out. I haven’t shown my baseline form to Hermione or Neville or Susan, and here I am, showing it to _Zabini_ of all people.

And, as the answer, they perform their weird bow-courtsy _again_ , after looking at me from head to toe for a few seconds.

I sigh. “Just tell me, Zabini, and quit egging me on. I’ve got no time for this.”

And they… comply, while kneeling on the floor and bowing lower, with their head still tilted to expose their throat and their hands linked on the small of their back.

“As ordered, Aslakonnar,” they say, with an almost respectful tone that is quite a far cry from their earlier behaviour towards me. “Aslakonnar might receive a better and more comprehensive answer from Aslakonnar’s mother, Chief of the Milaðen and High Monarch of Ýmirheim, who is reputedly possessed of great healing skills… and armed forces.”

I bury my face in my hands. “Zabini…. Just _teach_ me.”

Black Island, 29th December 2003

“You have studied that subject for only a day, Harry. You should be _totally_ sure about your skills, first, and it is impossible to achieve in only one day!”

“I’m going to attempt a small thing, first, like what Zabini taught me. There’s nobody here but you and I, anyway.”

“So it is why Fawkes flew away with the trunk?”

“Well… you’re made of magic, and he isn’t. ‘Sides, I’ll need him to return to guard Teal’c, soon. He can’t do that if he’s a chick again. And the Jaffa are why I’m doing this in the first place, so they need to be elsewhere for this.”

“So you admit that this is a very bad idea?”

“Umm. Just precaution, Black. Just that. Told you, I’m going to try just a small thing, first.”

“First.”

“Of course. We can try something else after that, if I’m successful.”

“If you are successful.”

“Well, I hope so.”

“Do you remember _why_ I sacrificed so much for this island, _including my life_?”

“Umm. So that it can be sanctuary for your family, and for other magicals that need it? And maybe some mundanes too if it’s possible?”

“And you are going to _ruin_ it?”

“Ah, _no_! I’m actually hoping to add my own touch to it… later… with some of Potter family magic and the Song….”

“And you are still learning _both_.”

“Huff. Told you, Black, it’s _later_ , not now! And I don’t know myself how ‘later’ it is. There are still so many things to do, including this one. And they won’t get done if you keep delaying me.”

“For your own good and the good of this island, Harry, and _also_ the good of your family.”

“I sent the Jaffa and my will to Neville. They, the Residents and the house-elves will be protected under House Longbottom. Already asked Hermione to make more stasis disks for Teal’c, too, and I left a vial of my blood plus instructions with Justin. He’ll take care of the properties if I’m… well, gone. I’m prepared, this time.”

“This time.”

“Yes, this time, Black. Don’t you know? I thought you knew everything in my head.”

“No, Harry. I always try not to pry.”

“Umm, well, all right, thanks, but, fact is, umm, it’s… well, if I died, and it’s an _if_! Well, if I did, then it wouldn’t be the first time. See, Voldemort accidentally left a piece of his soul in me when he tried to kill me the first time, when I was a year old. A Horcrux, Dumbledore thought, but not like you. He couldn’t die forever if the bit in me wasn’t destroyed, and Dumbledore theorised that I got to die by his hand to achieve that, so… I died. By the Killing Curse. Same like when he tried it the first time. But I didn’t die forever. I just… visited a weird King’s Cross Station.”

“And you were?”

“Umm, seventeen, going on eighteen, if you meant to ask me that. – Hey, Black? Where are you going? You mean me to practise in the forest? Isn’t that more risky than the beach? Black? Hello?”

But the huge, black-skinned semi-living warrior that is my long, long, long, long ago ancestor doesn’t stop stomping towards the forest, and he’s soon swallowed by the shadows under the trees.

I sigh.

“All right! I’m at the beach if you need me for something!” I call to where I last saw his back. “I’m going to practise like I told you! Don’t startle me, okay?”

What a “good” start to my venture into a new magical subject….


	27. The Song of Me

Black Island, 29th December 2003

Seated on a waterproof picnic blanket on the tidal line at the beach, I fiddle with the edge of a stack of transparent plastic sheets that I nicked – with written apology – from Justin’s new office in the London flat I rented till a few days ago. Truth be told, Zabini’s warnings and Black’s displeasure have caused me to have third thoughts about practising the Song here and now…. But if I don’t, what will I do with the Jaffa in the trunk and those that Teal’c will send next?

_But_ hesitating when casting a spell – _any_ spell – will result in either nothing, a weak something, something else altogether, or a disaster. Even a firsty at Hogwarts would know that. And no doubt I’m doubting things, now, hence hesitating.

“Damn,” I ggrumble, even as I mix and dump some watercolour paint on each of the plastic sheets, anyway; the first of the stages of my experiment. I can’t stop, now, or I shan’t start ever again. Occlumency might help me focus, when comes the time to try to peel the paint off the top-most sheet without making a hole on it or the sheets below, like Zabini showed me back at Grimmauld yesterday.

Blue, red, green, yellow, pink, brown, purple, black, grey, white – I got ten sheets, ten colours, and ten chances to try on this “simple exercise” with the Song, which I must perform while in my baseline form.

All right, then. Ready yourself, Harry. No doubts! You can do it!

Now: Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale….

I close my eyes, relax my physical muscles as well as my magical ones, open my senses as wide as possible except for my sight, soak in the ambience – the nature all round me, the magic of the island that is regarding me curiously and expectantly – and gather my own magic together with every breath that I inhale.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale….

With magic saturating my being, I delve deeper into my escence, into what makes me… _me_. Something that Zabini painstakingly guided me a day long, until early this morning, and warned me to _never_ tamper on.

Well, not a chore, that. I’m not going to let myself become – _no, no, no, no, no, no, focus, you_! Don’t think about _him_.

Again. Again. – Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale….

I delve into my escence again, let myself revel in the indescribable experience for a moment and an eternity, let myself get a grip on my own being, cradle it, explore it, cherish it.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale….

There are links attached to me, leading out to quite a few places, more than I thought I would have: my combined Houses, Fawkes, my friends….

Mother.

Sibling.

Father.

And, fainter, what feels like more distant siblings.

My breath hitches. – I did not find this out even in the last time I delved in, early this morning!

I have _living family members_!

No. No. No. Not now. Not now. Later. Focus. Focus. Come on….

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale….

I want to peel off some paint. I want to peel off some paint. I want to peel off some paint. Just that. Without hurting the plastic sheet. Just on one sheet. Come on, _I can do it_. I want to do it. _I can do it_. Just peel off some paint on one sheet without touching the sheet itself.

But I can use the sheet to give me a picture, too, can’t I? There’s already some paint on it, and on other sheets, and in the tubes nearby….

I want to know. I need to know. Mother. Sibling. Father. Other family members. I _need_ to know. Some familiarity. An anchor. _Please_.

My escence stirs, reaches out, vibrates, _moves_.

I am a passenger. I am the doer.

I am mesmerised, myself.

The power, the escence – _my power, my escence_ – flows like water: up and down, side to side, gentle, slow, like my first boat ride across the lake to Hogwarts Castle before my first year there.

No, no, no, _no_. Not Hogwarts yet. Hogwarts is no more but my family members _are still there_. I want to know. I _need_ to know.

Curiosity. Longing. Hope. Love. – I know you. I don’t need to know you more to care for you. I want you. I need you. I love you. Where are you?

I travel far, wide, away. Something anchors me in place but also boosts me to go forward, ever forward, ever afield. Something not of myself, and yet my own. Something that marvels, hopes, loves, supports me.

I revel in it, as well, even as I go farther and farther and farther, carried on the tide of my own escence, of the links that act as guiding ropes.

A huge alien with blue skin, no hair, silvery markings and red eyes is the first. My escence acknowledges them as mother, and I swarm ecstatically round them. ` _Mother, mother, mother,_ ` I sing, and they in turn warble out, ` _Child, child, child,_ ` with thick, viscous droplets running down their thin cheeks.

My sibling is next. My twin. The other half of the one. – They look just like me! Black hair, green eyes, fair skin, and all. But they seem to freak out, instead of welcoming me….

` _Sibling, twin, half,_ ` I sing, nonetheless, and envelop them in me, in all that I feel for them, in all that I feel for us, in all that I feel for our mother.

They become… disbelieving… and then distraught, when I repeat my song for them.

The Song cannot lie. The soul cannot lie. I found it out. They are finding it out, now, too… to their shock and grief, somehow.

Why shock? Why grief? Don’t they know me? Don’t they want me? Don’t they need me? I know-want-need them!

I ask.

They shove me away.

My eagerness and cheer fade, just so. I don’t even have the energy and desire to seek out other links.

I return to my point of origin, to my body, to my mundane senses, slowly and dispiritedly.

I am me. I am Harry. I am also Loki Laufey-childe, I suppose, now that I have undeniable evidence that I am not just Harry.

I am me. I am… lying down?… on a damp surface, inhaling and exhaling slowly, surrounded by the sounds of suffing waves and the rumbling of more beyond.

I am me. And now I know myself.


	28. Consequences

Black Island, 31st December 2003

I resurface from dreams – or is it recollection of past events? – on the divan in the hut, instead of on the picnic blanket on the tidal line of the beach.

And Black is looming over me, _and_ scowling fiercely.

With him as huge and muscly as he is, and possessed of features as rugged as he is even without the scowl, he looks so scary right now.

I cringe away, by reflex, and automatically mutter a sorry.

“Not sorry enough not to do it again, I wager,” he growls back.

I look away.

“are you aware that you have punched a big hole in this island’s protection to reach all those links you sang about?”

“You… got what I was singing about?” I return weakly, while curling up as far away from him as possible. “Sorry sorry sorry,” I hastily add on his louder growl, which sounds scarily like a hungry tiger about to pounce. “I didn’t mean to. I meant to just experiment _here_ , not outside.”

“So you did not heed the warnings of your own tutor,” he concludes. “What is the use of having a tutor, then?”

I wince. – Yes, Zabini will be _mad_ at me, reasonably so, and probably won’t teach me any more titbits about the Song… if I tell them, _or Black somehow does_.

“Don’t tell them, please?” I plead, though I have no hope that he will even listen to it.

And…, “Did you know that you were incapacitated for _two days_ and nearly drowned down there on the beach, if your phoenix companion did not fly through the hole and save you in the nick of time? Did you know that _I_ was _also_ incapacitated, nearly for the same amount of time? And you made me responsible for _all_ the wards around _all_ your properties! They were all _exposed and vulnerable_ for the duration of my incapacitation!”

Yes. He doesn’t even listen to what I said. And for a pretty good reason, apparently. Oh, damn. What did you do, Harry? Why did you stray so far?

But I met my mother and twin! I have a _living_ mother and twin! Alien and unknown as they are….

But is it worth all the trouble? Couldn’t – _shouldn’t_ – I try it on a less warded area, so I wouldn’t have jeopardised this island and Black _and_ all the properties and people in them in the process?

Damn. You are _also_ Lord Black _and_ Lord Potter, Harry, not just Harry and Loki Laufey-childe.

“I’m sor–,” I start, but then clamp my mouth shut again.

Fawkes materialises before me, in a bigger, more blinding ball of fire. – Awh, he’s mad at me, _too_ , no doubt.

Aaand, ` _Do you have no care for your friends, Harry? You asked me yourself to guard Teal’c. He was in the middle of a pitch battle when your singing distracted him! I had to transport him away before somebody shot at him from the back and hope that nobody saw me doing it! And he thought **I** was the one singing!_`

I slump against the rough wooden wall of the hut, huffing out a long sigh.

“I’m sorry, all right? I shan’t do it again,” I mutter, then hastily amend, “Not without more study, and perhaps not here.” I dearly wish to visit my mother and twin again, after all, and I didn’t have the chance to see my father and other _living_ family members yet, too, during my semi-disastrous first attempt.

` _Teal’c will contact you when he is ready,_ ` Fawks snaps in response. ` _You had better confess it all to him._ `

“Mend the hole, Harry,” Black interjects before I can give my acquiescence to the figuratively and literally ruffled phoenix.

I give him a look. “I messed up and you wanted me to do more mess?”

“I want you to straighten up your mess,” he clarifies, glaring back at me with so much anger _and disappointment_ that I look away and down, quite chastened.

“I am not ignorant of what a Potter can do,” he continues in a more level tone after a beat, apparently satisfied with my reaction. “Dorea the Fourth and Andromeda the First were not the only children of the House of Black to have mingled with the House of Potter in a spousal relationship.”

“You want me to patch the hole with some Potter magic,” I conclude, then sigh on his nod. “You know that I barely studied it too, right?”

“From what I observed, it is less wild, less powerful and less destructive than what you called the Song,” he points out simply. “This might be further motivation for you to study it, as well. It is your birthright, after all, even beyond potioneering.”

I shrug. “Potioneering can save people.” It could have saved Teal’c so much suffering, and saved Zabini and I the risk of botching a Working – as the prat named it.

“Warding can protect the people that you saved through mundane means,” he retorts, his temper rising again. “I needed only little boost from my magic to save whom I could save, Harry, but I needed wards and illusions to protect them from further harm. – Nowadays, you can buy potions in shops anonymously, but you cannot buy family protection without revealing its purpose and your family’s identity, thus defeating the protection in the first place.”

“Now I see where the Blacks got the paranoia from,” I rejoin wryly, dodging the bolt of magic that he sends speeding towards me right after. “Right, I’m off to do some patching up. – Please tell Teal’c not to contact me too soon, Fawkes, on order of this bossy one.”

I am aware that I am _still_ in my baseline form only when, after dashing through the drapery that serves as the front door and instinctively touching the bridge of my nose to push my specs back up it, I realise that I have been enjoying clear vision without the aid of my specs.

“Oh,” I mutter dumbly. “Oh. Oh.” I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, to stay in my baseline form for so long, especially since I am a late-blooming metamorph, but I _really, really, really hope_ that it’s not a bad thing.

Merlin, I’ve got enough bad consequences rubbed on my face already!


	29. A Lord Lordes

Longbottom Hall, 31st December 2003

“What did you do two days ago, Harry?”

“Hey, I’ve just arrived! No ‘hello’ for me?”

“Nope. Not now. You put Zabini into a tizzy. What happened?”

“Whoa. _Zabini_? Quite a record, that.”

“Come on, Harry. Stop dilly-dallying. Whatever it is between the two of you, you know very well that he’s a rather unruffled blogue, most of the times. And he _wasn’t_ , two days ago, just a day after the two of you vanished to do who-knows-what.”

“And _they_ often emphasised that _they_ would like to be called a ‘they’, y’know, Nev.”

“Harry….”

“Ahem. Well, well, I was learning some spiffy newfound magic from them, really. And then I practised it two days ago.”

“I wish to clarify, Harry…. You studied _a new branch of magic_ in just _one_ day, and the very next day you _experimented_ with it?”

“Umm. Yes? – Ow! What did you hit me for?”

“That. Is. Reckless. Even for a Gryffindor!”

“Hey! We were uniquely qualified for that particular branch of magic! Trust me!”

“Nope, not going to trust you on this… or many other things.”

“You wound me.”

“Better wounded and alive than gruesomely dead and bringing everyone else down with you. – Don’t huff at me, Harry. You railed at Hermione for her reckless decision, bonding with Arga, and now you did it yourself. What would she say to that if she knew?”

“Well, that I am a hypocrite, pro’ly.”

“ _More_ than that, I dare say. – But… really, Harry, you can’t just do something like that, you know. You are in charge of _many lives_ , unlike Hermione, or even Justin. Justin’s only in charge of the lives of his current patients, but you… no. And thrusting your responsibility so summarily on him won’t work, you know. – Yes, I know about the blood and your instructions to him. Zabini got us all together to try to find out what you were doing. And….”

Sighing slow and long and loudly, Neville regards me with the same deadly intensity as Zabini did, when I told them I was going to tinker with the Song on my own. What an unpleasant déjà vu.

And then, he continues, with his eyes never leaving mine and his words hitting like a particularly enthusiastic hammer on an unsuspecting finger each time, “And, like this, you were _toying_ with the lives of your people, Harry. No, listen – they _depend_ on you: the house-elves, the Residents, even the family that you said have been taking care of your Washington townhouse for almost three generations. They depend on you _to be there_ ; not to hold their hands all the way, not necessarily for the security either, but for their wellbeing, to be their leader, to be the head of their collective family. You can get Justin to take care of the buildings and lands, _if_ he agrees, but you can’t dump the people on him. It wouldn’t be fair for both parties. _You_ are their lord, their protector; not Justin, not me, not anybody else. Muggle lordships are ceremonial nowadays, as I understand it, but Wizarding ones are not, especially for big clans like yours. They _love_ you, Harry, and they don’t demand your physical presence nearby everytime, but you must be there so they can go on doing their duties and living their lives, with the _happy_ knowledge that you’ll be there to lead them or to help them if they need it, or even to receive what good things they’d like to share with you. And you can’t be there if you’re dead.”

I look away, breaking the staring contest, caving in first.

I can’t deny the points he makes.

Nor the fact that I am mostly _ignorant_ about those points. Andy taught me mostly about how to _act_ lordly and how to manage the various properties, not to be an _actual_ lord!

“Did your gran teach you this?” I inquire, mostly to buy time for me to regain my equilibrium and in the hope of diverting his outrage.

He gives me a knowing, exasperated look in answer… but he does calm down a little.

“No,” he snorts. “From the paintings of my ancestors, mostly the oldest ones. They’re better company than my living relatives, most of the times.”

He resumes glaring sternly at me, then, and insists, “You’ve got family, Harry, a big one. Are you going to abandon them?”

After a loud but brief exhale of breath, he continues before I can argue back, “If you can’t view them as family yet, maybe the possible profit might change your mind. My House’s crops are the best and most numerous thus far in the international market, though we didn’t increase the greenhouses and farms significantly, and it’s just because I’ve been paying much more attention on the house-elves who work there outside of work time.”

I glare back at him for that, for the first time since he confronted me, which was just after we took a seat on his porch.

“You ever saw me mistreat a house-elf?” I demand.

He shakes his head and huffs again, clearly impatient. “Not the point, Harry,” he insists, then swipes a hand to shut me up. “The point is, don’t sell your people to anybody… and they’re going to think you’ve sold them away if they suddenly find that they’re answering to anybody else. Imagine yourself as one of them, Harry; do you want that to happen to you?”

I cringe.

“You befriend them without being told to; that’s already steps further than what I did with Longbottom house-elves.” His voice and face soften. “Now, you just need to keep them, and you do that by not risking your life and wellbeing for _anything_.” His countenance turns into the quietly sympathetic one that I was rather used to during my Hogwarts days, then, as he adds, “I truly like Teal’c, Harry, from the little time that we had to know him, and I want to help his people, too. But you already have your own people to think about; and whatever you do for these new ones, you shouldn’t discard the ones that are already there.”

Well. Damn.

He does have a point.

“I’m never normal in my life, aren’t I?” I grouse quietly.

He shakes his head, smiling sadly. “Not a chance, and not just because being a lord is your birthright. You should be glad of it, though. Normal like me is somewhat boring.”

“Boring, eh?” I grin a little. “What happened with ‘the Hero of Hogwarts’?”

He raises an eyebrow and grins back… predatorily. “Want me to lock you in my Greenhouse Three for a quick chat with my babies there, Harry? I’ve just received a shipment of very, very good specimen….”

“Erm….” I quickly rise to my feet. “Thanks for inviting me for a chat…. Bye!”

And, without further ado, I take off to the nearest Floo-capable fireplace. – I love that blogue, even when he’s berating me like what he did to me just now, but I’m not having any “quick chat” with his babies _ever again_!


	30. Raining Jaffa

Black Lodge, 2nd January 2004

“Tita? Odi? Nilo?” I call out cheerfully as soon as my feet touch the granite tiles of Black Lodge’s front porch. “I’m back! Wanna meet a new friend?”

Three pops between me and the front door herald the arrival of the house’s little, green caretakers, who beam up at me with their chocolate-coloured eyes bright with excitement.

“Where is the guest, Master Harry?” Nilo, Tita’s and Odi’s cousin, looks round after a beat. “Nilo doesn’t see or sense any.”

“In Master Harry’s trunk?” Tita hazards a hopeful guess. “Is Master Teal’c back?”

I shake my head. “No. We got some of his people with us, though. But we must be careful. So can I trust you to stay invisible and do nothing while I talk to them one by one?”

“What about if they attack Master Harry?” Odi protests anxiously.

I shake my head again. “Stay invisible and do nothing, just look,” I insist. “They’ll just freak out more if you show yourself or attack them back invisibly. Let me deal with them, all right?”

The three house-elves bow and say their yesses. But their cheerfulness and eagerness have turned into worry and anxiety, now, and it just helps raise my own trepidation, which I masked with some cheer, earlier.

Well, the fact is, if Neville didn’t nudge me two days ago, and _somebody_ didn’t arrange _all_ my folk to celebrate the changing of the year with me yesterday, I wouldn’t even have had the courage or the drive to confront the problem of the Jaffa today, especially without the solution for the Goa’uld dependence ready. I used the chance of everyone being there yesterday to announce that my friends – as a council – would act as me should I be unavailable for a long time for some reason, and that I was going to try something a little risky to see if I could add more to the family… and they _welcomed the family bit heartily_.

It’s a rather flimsy kind of courage and drive, and I’m proving how flimsy it is at present.

But still, I go on, making a beeline to the bedroom that Teal’c occupied while he was here, with three pairs of small feet pitter-pattering on the wooden floor of the house after me. Because I promised Teal’c to help his people, and Fawkes may be back whenever with _more_ of them. I’m not going to be drowned by Jaffa, in any sense of the word!

“Shall we prepare something for Master Harry’s guest?” Nilo offers hesitantly while I enlarge my “Jaffa Express” – my repurposed, refurbished portable-flat trunk – on the open space inside the bedroom, between the bed and the dresser.

“Maybe a glass of water and some plain but sweetened bread?” I suggest. “Start with something small. Then he can ask for other things as he wishes. Don’t put those things on anything that can be used as a weapon, though. Teal’c said that his people are warriors, and we don’t know what they think of us, and how they’d react to us. I would rather not accidentally arm one of his people with anything weaponisable; not till we know each other better.”

“Unbreakable but cushionable glass and plate?” Tita joins in, while I unlatch the lid and carefully peek down and around into the dark interior of the trunk.

“Sure,” I agree. “Now, let’s see – _Lumos_.” I send a ball of not-so-bright sunlight-like illumination down the ladder and into the portable flat, enlarging it as it traverses the darkness. “Hmm. Seems like nobody got out of stasis, or managed not to be put in stasis…. I’ll have to come up with a better idea to check for them and their status next time. Make a note of it, would you, Odi?”

Then I jump in.

Portable Flat at Black Lodge, 2nd January 2004

I land on a crouch in the vestibule about ten feet below… which is full of crates _that I didn’t put there_. They don’t look like those I and others put in the mokeskin pouch, too.

“Ah, please, can any of you find out what’s inside one of these crates without disturbing them?” I whisper into the cold, dimly lit air in front of me.

“If there is no magical barrier, Master… and there is not, here,” Nilo whispers back. “But the things in the crates, Master Harry, they are so _odd_!”

I quirk a smile at his childish dramatics. “In what way?”

“Weird sticks, weird balls, weird food, weird armour, weird clothing,” Odi supplies, instead of his cousin.

“Personal things,” Tita adds. “Not many. Mostly not here, though. Shall I gather them up, Master?”

“No need,” I muse. “I wouldn’t want my things be bothered. If our first friend wants it, you can help him find and clean his things, as long as they’re not dangerous, but not before. Now, let’s hide these crates and free up some space, shall we? You could put the crates in storage, as long as you don’t think they’re dangerous.”

I can’t help but laugh a little when, without leaving the space behind me, the elves manage to transport the crates away. “Eager to see the new friend, are you?” I comment grinningly.

“We look after Master Harry, too,” Tita reminds me firmly, from her still-invisible position right behind me. “Wouldn’t be looking after if we’re away.”

Still grinning, I pivot round, drop to one knee and pull my tiny friends into a hug, one by one, with a sincere thanks for each.

These little ones already boost my mood greatly – just in time, too!

I make my way out of the vestibule into the “dormitory” area, and… the “Jaffa retrieval team’s” dilligence is readily apparent.

There are four “dorm rooms” that I repurposed from my potions lab, personal bedroom, storeroom/pantry and study, with two beds set in the former kitchen that is now a basic infirmary. And, from what I see as the elves and I are cautiously exploring the whole flat and peeking round every corner, _all_ the space is full, literally up to the ceiling. Even the spaces that I thought weren’t humanely usable unless in desperate need, such as the bit of floor parallel to the walls outside of the rooms.

In the last count that I made, as I rigged hammocks in the spaces between the numerous bunk beds and put quite a few pieces of foam mattresses for just-in-case in the bathroom turned storeroom, I _knew_ that the “dorm rooms” could hold twenty-one people, as they are roughly the same in size. And all the beds and hammocks are full of bodies garbed in a grey combo of tunic and trousers, now, with the stasis disk gleaming faintly on the chest of each rescuee.

Plus the ones placed in the “infirmary” and out in the hall, the… _enthusiastic_ team apparently rescued… quite a few Jaffa.

_Ninety-four_ , to be exact, after thrice rechecking my count and asking the elves to confirm it.

And Hermione admited yesterday that she sent _a bigger portable flat_ along with many more stasis disks and other supplies with Fawkes when he flew back to Teal’c.

A portable flat that she configured to be as space-efficient as this one.

Oh. Damn. Hell.


	31. The First, the Oldest, the… Wisest?

Black Lodge, 2nd January 2003

**Harry, this Jaffa is Sai’yo of Chulak. He does not believe in the supremacy and divinity of the Goa’uld, and I have been hiding his private explorations for knowledge from Apophis, so did Bra’tac before me. He is very knowledgeable in Goa’uld technology and tactics, as the result, as well as other matters. He fights not by frontal physical attacks, however, unlike most Jaffa. He is 200 years old and has just received his last prim’ta. He may yet live for 15-17 more years as his prim’ta is younger than it would be advisable for a Jaffa in the active armed forces. He can no longer serve not because of that, however. Some Goa’uld underling caught him observing the technology that Apophis has just had me rest from a new planet. Apophis ordered me to torture him for information then kill him. I took the chance to tell him about you and give him knowledge of your language. He has pledged his life to you. Remind him of it and curtail his access to technology, information and knowledge as necessary. This is Teal’c of Chulak writing.**

The report, penned hurriedly on a piece of parchment with what looks like some self-inking quill, which somebody – most likely Hermione, possibly Luna, maybe Susan – apparently contributed to Teal’c’s mokeskin pouch, is pinned on one corner to the body of… Sai’yo… with the stasis disk.

Like a long, macabre birthday note on a birthday present of some sort. And the “birthday present” is currently laid out on the bed that belonged to Teal’c when he was here.

Well, the first Jaffa that I unearthed, and he’s a male, taller, far older version of Hermione Granger. Great.

He even has rather bushy hair, though his is grey and cropped short. And he doesn’t look a day over forty – a youthful-looking forty – except for his hair.

A _very fit_ forty, at that.

Huh. Fifteen to seventeen years of living with two healthy, energetic, overly curious and bold Hermiones… and that is if I did not manage to find a replacement for the prim’ta for a Jaffa.

Might see a century or more with two Hermiones, if I managed.

And with my “saving people thing” in play….

I shudder. A century with two Hermiones, here we go.

“Merlin, save me,” I mutter, then tap the stasis disk with the tip of my magically charged finger to deactivate it.

The note and disk vanish – possibly into Odi’s keeping – as the male Hermione begins to breathe slowly in and out, as if sleeping or unconscious.

But if Teal’c was in a hurry and told this one about me _and_ used the English memory crystal on him before putting him into stasis, he wouldn’t be unconscious before delivery, right? There wouldn’t be any time! I didn’t find any knock-out wound on him, either.

Ha. Subterfuge. This one is _more dangerous_ than Hermione in an ordinary day, then. Awesome….

I spread the magical charge to my entire hand, instead of just a finger, and raise it a little in preparation to defend myself as I sing-song, “Waky waky, buddy. You are on Earth, now. I believe our mutual acquaintance calls it ‘Tau’ri’. Come on. I’ll zap you awake if you don’t wake up by yourself.”

I hurriedly tiptoe backwards, after that, to give myself more space to fight.

Just in time. The blogue’s eyes open slowly, warily, revealing a pair of deep, dark blue irises. And then he turns his face to the right, and our eyes meet.

“Hello!” I muster up my best cheerful voice. “Welcome to Earth. I’m Harry. What’s your name?”

Well, contrary to his slow beginning, he draws a sharp breath and rises to his feet the second he hears my name, and… _kneels on the floor beside the bed_.

I let out a resigned sigh.

“My lord,” he murmurs in a surprisingly pleasant, rather high-pitched voice, with his head bowed and his eyes apparently directed to the carpeted floor.

Not this again….

“Didn’t you hear my name? Use it,” I grump. “The bed’s there for a reason, too. Get up, get up. Sit there or on the chair or wherever. No kneeling, got it? And look at me when you’re saying something to me, too, please.”

The Jaffa bows low in his kneeling position, in response, then gets up slowly, fluidly, before backing away to the bed and taking a seat on its edge… with his eyes still lowered. Oh, well.

Eh, I take my assessment back, by the way. Movement-wise, he’s not a day over thirty, if not younger.

Lucky sod.

“Now, what’s your name?” I repeat, while allowing the magical charge to dissipate from my hand, which is now tingling rather severely from the prolonged soaking.

“Sai’yo, Lord Harry; Sai’yo of Chulak,” is his answer, delivered in a measured tone that matches the unreadable light in his gaze as he finally meets my eyes again.

“Drop the ‘Lord’ and you’re fine, Sai’yo. By the way, what did Teal’c tell you about me?” I prod carefully. – We’re pretty much tiptoeing round each other, it feels, but I can’t help it, and it seems that he doesn’t want to risk it. Funny: a strong someone who is taller than I am and undoubtably more skilled, not wanting to risk it, but that’s the fact, and I find myself somehow appreciating it.

And, “That you are a powerful but kind and considerate lord who would risk much for his people… Harry,” he says, just as carefully. “He also promised that I would live out the remainder of my life on Tau’ri in peace should I pledge myself to you.”

I quirk an eyebrow. “And do you want peace?” I emphasise the last part, which is _very_ important to me, given his skills and also given his upbringing and environment prior to coming here. “Because there is nobody here for you to fight, though there are lots of knowledge and information you can learn if you swear you don’t mean harm with what you know.”

“What about your enemies, my lord?” His gaze is even more unreadable, now, like a shuttered pair of round windows.

The other eyebrow joins the first high on my forehead. “What did I tell you about calling me ‘lord’?” I retort. “And fighting my enemies is not for you. It’s my own business. Teal’c promised you’d live your life peacefully here, and so you shall.”

He bows his head, then looks back into my eyes with an even-more-shuttered expression. “What about punishment, my lord?”

Oh. Oh. Oh. He was _bating_ me! He wanted to know what I’d do to him for something as simple as not calling me Harry as I wanted, before he’d do something bigger.

Wily, clever, careful sod. No wonder he lives to be two centuries, in his line of work and with his nosiness always turned on.

“What about it?” I return in my best casual tone.

Aaand, he seems to realise that I have realised what he actually meant, because he seems to relax a little and says, “Nothing, my lord.”

But damn the “lord” part. If he doesn’t lose it soon from his vocabulary when addressing me whether I’m there or not, I’m going to prank him till he caves in. George will gladly help me, I bet.

I tell him so, in the same faux-casual tone.

And he _smiles_ to that, a little, with both his lips and his eyes.

All right. Challenge accepted.

And I take back my assessment of his similarity to Hermione, too. Because, like this, he seems to be a blend between Hermione _and George Weasley_.

Scary.

But… fun.


	32. Librarian Scientists

Baker Street no. 221B, 4th May 2004

“If we got a _Millennium Falcon_ for ourselves, it’d be awesome,” I remark musingly while the closing credits of _A New Hope_ roll in on the projector, reflected on the white bedsheet spread from wall to wall that Justin uses to show the film.

The host himself, also the originator of this idea, which is a “movie night” shared between as many people as possible that can be stuffed into his flat plus office, which I handed over to him after the owners got no other takers, snorts but seems too busy crunching on his popcorn to join in.

Hermione’s the one who joins in, though she’s half-way busy with her own tub of popcorn. “I’d rather build Artoo-Deetoo.”

“A lightsabre would be nice and handy,” Sai’yo, seated on a cushion on the farthest corner of the living room as he is the tallest and ironically most sharp-eyed among us, ventures out quietly. He has improved some since I got him out of stasis early this year, but caution seems to be inherent in his personality, even when we all are sprawled haphazardly here, watching a “movie marathon” of Star Wars, with snacks provided by some enthusiastic elves.

“Why not a blaster?” Susan inquires, more seriously thoughtful than I am about a spaceship.

I straighten up from my comfy huddle among a few conjured pillows and a duvet and turn to her, who is seated across the way, past Zabini, Luna and Hermione. “Thinking of making it, Sue?”

She grins back at me. “We already use crystals to store and enhance magic,” she says. “Why not try to beam it out? Justin taught me about laser when we were still at Hogwarts. I think we can do something similar, just with magic instead of light.”

Aaand, Sai’yo perks up, just like in other times whenever someone talks about magic or lets him read about it. He just… _doesn’t ask_ ; something which somehow grates on Hermione, and it’s begun to bother me, too.

Before I can use the chance to prod him to ask whatever’s churning in his reputedly knowledgeable mind, though, Justin shushes us all, and the next film – _The Empire Strikes Back_ – begins to play on our makeshift cinema screen.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 5th May 2004

“We need a dedicated laboratory and library, Harry.”

“Huh?” Wha?”

“We need a dedicated laboratory and library, Harry.”

“Umm, I mean, yes I hear that, Mione, but… why?”

“You said yourself you wanted a spaceship. Susan wants a blaster and Sai’yo wants a lightsabre. I wouldn’t mind a safe cryogenic chamber, myself, in addition to a multifunction space robot. Arga believes that her sister is still alive somewhere, in whatever condition she’s in after Ra got her, and I want to help both of them – Arga and her sister, that is.”

“Huh? Ra? Got her? Condition?”

“Sigh. You know Arga is terribly old in our standard, right? You remember she knew Apophis personally – Teal’c’s lord?”

“Yes?”

“Ra is Apophis’ brother – well, sibling, really, since the symbiotes are genderless but for the queens – and was very powerful, even back then. He was forced to abandon this planet by a mixture of uprising and sabotage, and the perpetrators were mostly magicals. Arga and someone called Black led both in somewhat different times, but they met at one point, and Black saved her by putting her in stasis… until the Unspeakables got their hands on her stasis jar, recently.”

“Your point, please? – Sorry, Mione, but Slughorn assigned me so many things to do, since I asked him to speed up the apprenticeship.”

“Sigh. The _point_ is, Egeria might still be alive out there, if probably not quite in one piece. She was one of the leaders of the movement against Ra, and she sacrificed herself so that both Arga and Black wouldn’t be found out, so Arga would like to save her in turn. A cryogenic chamber which could preserve living beings perfectly might be needed to safely transport and store her till we could heal her.”

“Why not a stasis disk or a stasis jar like what Black put Arga in?”

“ _Because_ a cryogenic chamber would be more accepted by the Muggles, Harry. You needn’t be in trouble with the wizarding world, with that. You got enough already at present. – Aren’t you going to sell things to supplement your income, someday? This chamber could be one of them. I’d like to contribute, in any case. I don’t want to be a freeloader forever.”

“You realise that, in money and property at least, I’m not exactly poor?”

“Humph! Your _judgement_ is poor, if you’d go with your inheritance only, you know that already, Harry.”

“Andy helped me convert most of the wizarding money lying around in the vaults into pounds. We even bought most of the mundane money lying around Gringotts for a pittance. Did you know that the goblins usually _burnt_ the Muggle currency that didn’t get used by them or us after the Muggleborn exchanged it with the Wizarding one?”

“Sigh. Not the point, Haryyy.”

“It’s the point, Mione. I got so much money now that I don’t know what to do with it, even after setting aside a healthy sum for the Jaffa and the research for their cure.”

“Invest in space travel, exploration and combat, then? You can spend and earn money, then. The universe is huge, you know. You might need the money, as items, for barter….”

“…And that boils down to the first point. Neat.”

“Harry!”

“What?”

“You you you… _prat_!”

“Happy to help, Mione.”

“ _Harry_!”

“All right. Bye!”

I skedaddle out of the potions lab, out of the house, and out of England entirely, with that.

After warding my potions lab against tampering, of course. A needled and vengeful Hermione is… unpredictable.

Black Lodge, 5th May 2004

“Saiii-yooo. I’m baaack!” I yell in a sing-song while entering the Black property in Norway that’s quickly becoming home, as per usual.

And, _also_ as per usual, I find the other semi-permanent occupant of the house inside the library, smiling a little when I stroll in, with the books that I assigned him to read – basic overview of the magical and mundane societies, as compiled by “the gang’s” consensus – stacked neatly all round him on the not-so-small tables.

“Huh.” I look bemusedly at the numerous tomes. “You read those yet?”

“Half of them, my lord,” he confirms, in the same quiet tone he likes to use, with a small smile still plastered on his face. “Would you like to read my notes?”

“Oh? You took notes?” I switch my bemused stare to him, now, while perching myself on the edge of one of the tables. I can freak out about his superspeed in reading later.

“Should I not, my lord?” He looks unreadable, now, losing his smile; his version of a cautious and apprehensive look, I’ve long realised that.

I give him an exasperated glare, in return. “What you shouldn’t do is making notes on these books,” I grumble. “But if the books happen to be yours, do whatever you want with them.”

I suspected _and_ expected that he’d bond fast with Hermione, by now, and she’d draw his real personality out, or at least loosen him up a little. But he withdrew _further_ instead, when they met for the first time. And Arga postulated in confidence to me later that, having spent so long sneaking round the Goa’uld in pursuit of knowledge and for his life, Sai’yo has been conditioned to treat all “blended individuals” – humans or other beings who got hitched up with the snake-like beings in their brains – as the same, evil or not. Assigning him books to read seems to draw him out a little when the book assigner – usually Susan or Justin, by advice of Hermione and Luna – asks him what he learnt from those books, but he clams up more often than not when it’s me or Hermione doing the post-reading interrogation. _Just like now_.

Prodding further usually just makes him withdraw even more, from my experience, so I stretch out a hand for his notes instead, in hope of being able to discuss them with him afterwards, to get him more used to me as equals.

Aaand, he hands me a _stack_ of them: large, labelled Muggle binder notebooks, full of neat handwriting on the lined sheets and sketches or diagrams – some of which are coloured – on the unlined ones.

Somebody or three must have supplied him well and thoroughly. And this must be his _accumulated_ notes since the first time we put him on this programme, because this stack is nearly a quarter of the books he’s presently surrounded with.

Oh, damn. What did I get myself into? Where should I even _begin_?

I stare wide-eyed at him, openly clueless and apprehensive.

And his smile returns, though a little dimmer than before. Success.

Well, I don’t look forward to reading all these, but….

“Whoa.” I take it back. The first sheet of notes alone represents _how magic can be incorporated into mundane Earth items in a potentially long-lasting use by Muggles_.

And, as I flip further and further into the first binder notebook alone, the ideas continue, now also incorporating what might be alien technology into the mix.

It’s not all about weapons or defence, either.

My. Teal’c didn’t exaggerate when he said that this blogue is knowledgeable. No, he _understated_ things, instead.

All these potential breakthroughs, in less than half a year….

This blogue might even come up with a cure for himself and his folk, _on his own_.

“Ah, Sai’yo,” I blurt out, half to myself, still very much floored, “you want a job? I’m hiring you to make these!”

And, wonder of all wonders, his whole face _lights up_ , like a Muggle Christmas tree newly attached to an electricity outlet, for the first time ever in our acquaintanceship.

Bingo.


	33. The Core of the Apple

Author's note: Folks, those of you who haven't reread the previous chapters, please do. Otherwise, you will be severely confused with this one. I did an overhaul on this fic, after the many suggestions and critiques about the length and content. Thanks! - Rey

Black Lodge, 7th May 2004

“You have been… quite productive.”

I gape, staring goggle-eyed at the items arranged neatly on my bed, complete with handwritten cardboard tags – or maybe brief notes – taped or tied to each.

Sai’yo, following me into the bedroom as I asked him to after getting Odi’s report about his inventions, rejoins bemusedly, “You asked me to ‘make things’, my lord. Are you not pleased?”

I turn round and point a chiding finger at his chest. “You wish to continue tinkering?” I demand. On his hesitant affirmation, I continue with, “If you don’t call me Harry, I’ll shut down your workshop and your access to my resources. You got to get them from others or the money you’ll get from these things _alone_ , and I tell you now, my resources are nicer than many.” Because pranking him was no fun at all, as he never retaliated or complained, and just looked resigned whenever I changed his hair colour some neon shade or whatever. It made me feel quite like the bully, and didn’t stop him from calling me “my lord” or “Lord Harry,” anyway.

Instead of worrying about the premature end of his tinkering, though, he wonders about the money.

“I said I was going to hire you, didn’t I? It means you get paid daily, weekly, monthly, or for what you got for me,” I reply, confused, my exasperation flagging. “I just didn’t think you’d start this early, or produce so many, yet. I was about to discuss it with you today, actually, and some safety rules too, hence why I’m here. Then Odi told me you wished to show me what you made already…. I thought it’s just one thing!” I scratch the side of my head. “Now, were you careful when making these? Wass any of the elves there to spirit you away if one of your experiments diddn’t like you tinkering with them?”

“I could move fast… Harry,” is his answer, which is _not_ a placating one as his tone indicates. “My symbiote would heal me, as well, should I incur some injury.”

I glower at him, though I’ve got to look up to do so, which rather lessens the effect.

“It can heal death? Transformation? Mutation? Missing limbs?” I snap, then roll my eyes when he shakes his head. “Magic can do that _and more_ , you know. Usually, people like me spend seven years learning just the basics, so we won’t endanger ourselves and others when we’re loosed out in the society.”

Looking back at the rows of items that the reticent, hesitant Jaffa has made in two days, I let loose a great sigh and try to think hard and fast on what I can do to keep him safe, _without_ curtailing something that he seems to like so much.

Well, my thoughts keep flashing to the mixed-subjects school at Black Sanctuary, my own Potions apprenticeship, my previous tutorials for A-Levels, and my brief experience at a school lab in primary school, so, “Well, I’ll get you a tutor or three, then, or even an apprenticeship on a particular subject. Start thinking which subject you want to study the most. You can choose one magical and one mundane, as long as the magical one doesn’t require active magic.”

Picking up the nearest item, which is a small square of stone slab which is runed at the back and polished till mirror-like at the front, which he labelled “ **light emiter based on motion** ”, I hastily add, “No trying on anything before you know more about it, by the way. I don’t even dare to turn on this thing…. Pity, that. This looks interesting.”

Then I get an idea…. “Maybe you could keep George company some time. Both of you like making things. He can help protect you from your own experiments, and you can help him survive without Fred. Or… I don’t know; maybe the Muggles have something like this already, and we could adapt our own from theirs. They’ve advanced much, lately. It’s been a while since last I stayed in a purely Muggle environment, though, so I don’t know what they’ve come up with. Maybe both of us should explore places for ideas and options, instead of just start making things that are already out there. I got the money for that, and I’ve been meaning to travel for quite some time….”

And Sai’yo… stares at me. He looks unsure, and befuddled, and even a little scared, or perhaps worried.

I cock my head. “Sai’yo? You all right?”

“I am well, my lord,” he replies blankly, automatically.

Oh. Not good.

“Come on.” I grab his hand and tow him out of the bedroom, gently. “Let’s go have some hot chocolate or something. – Tita, the library, please, and your bestest chocolate for us. Snacks if you think they won’t damage the books.”

But Sai’yo still looks lost, even when we’re surrounded by his beloved books.

I don’t know what to do, next, to draw him out of this automaton mode. My baseline form will just confuse him more and maybe even make him more apprehensive, while the kiddy version will make me lose control of what’s currently important, which is getting down to the reason _why_ this person still tiptoes round me even after nearly half a year spent in close vicinity with each other.

Well, but if we’re having hot chocolate and snacks…. “Tita,” I address the thin air, with Sai’yo’s hand still in mine, “change of plans. Bring the chocolate and snacks to the living room, please. We’re having a nest time.”

Since I got more accustomed to my baseline form, given the purportedly near-disaster of my attempt of utilising the Song to do things, I find myself liking to wallow in a nest of cushions, blankets, pillows, boulsters and all sorts of other cushiony things. In all my most-visited properties, the respective living rooms have been equipped with at least one huge rattan or wooden basin filled with the comfy, cushy, nesty things for me to luxuriate in with a book or even a game. Sometimes, I even got to invite one of my friends to share the space; to chat, for a chess match, to sleep… whatever. And they seemed to enjoy the experience, though it’s new for most of them.

Now, it’s Sai’yo’s time to get the treat.

“Come on in. – Oh, wait, let me clean you up, first, and please take off your shoes.”

Well, boots, really, as the poor Jaffa is still garbed in the same clothes – some uniform, I think – that he wore when I unearthed him from the depths of the portable flat, which look rather worn down by now. Strange, that nobody thought of other clothing and accessories yet for him, though we did think lots of his more academical and scientific pursuits….

Damn. We shouldn’t just _use_ him for his mind. He’s a _person_.

And _this_ , I’ve just realised, might be why – or one of the whys, at least – he got so befuddled: He must have expected to just churn out ideas and items based on what he knows and what we have provided him, not to travel simply for the sake of travelling and exploring new things – indulging himself, in other words.

Damn. All right. Got it. I’m so, so, so sorry, buddy.

I pack the compliant Jaffa into the nest and among the cushiest of the comfy things inside, do the same to myself half opposite him, then proceed with my sincerest apology – about his clothes, about our misunderstanding, about generally not paying enough attention to him… all.

“Teal’c told me you like to explore, and I forgot that,” I conclude. “I’m sorry I forgot. I didn’t remember till just now. But I’d really like to explore, no joke about it, and I’d like to invite you if you would.”

But… he’s still seated rather stiffly in his cocoon, though I’ve already melted into mine.

Unacceptable.

“Wanna ask me something? Fire away,” I offer, right when Tita pops in, just outside of the giant wooden bowl serving as my nest here, with two trays balanced on her hands. “Oh, and feel free to indulge in the chocolate and the snacks while you’re at it. Tita’s recipe is _awesome_.” I grin and wink at the house-elf, who blushes profusely as she sends the trays respectively to me and Sai’yo.

My gaze returns to the Jaffa nesting nearby after my little friend courtsies and pops away, and I pleasantly find that he now looks more relaxed than before and more curious, if still rather confused and wary. He even partakes of his mug of cocoa after seeing me sip at mine.

“My – Harry? Might I ask something?” he ventures out after a while, while I’m hummingly mix a few marshmallows, some colourful sprinkles and a chocolate-chip biscuit into my mug of cocoa.

“Well, you already do, just now, and I did invite you to, so why not? – Oh, by the way, you can experiment lots with your chocolate, so why not do that, too? See, I’m already doing it, and it tastes nice if you like it. Safe, too. Just don’t throw away what you’ve made.”

He stares at me for a long moment, perhaps trying to process the idea that one can experiment safely and freely with one’s precious food or drink, something that I didn’t find out till I got to Hogwarts for the first time and saw Seamus building a flammable castle from a few cuts of pie, gravy and… a few other things.

Damn. His past might be as bad as mine, then… or even worse.

But he _does_ ask, then, though it’s all about the names of the snacks and cocoa-companions, so maybe “asking questions” hasn’t been beaten or scared away out of him, like it has – _mostly_ – out of me by the time I got to Hogwarts.

And we end up chatting about the art of making chocolate drink, instead of his past.

By the time I realise it, the drinks and snacks have been demolished jointly, and the both of us are reclining cosily and drowsily in our cocoons, side by side with each other.

Too late to inquire, and too comfy to boot.

And maybe it’s what he’s been aiming for; that wily, clever, lucky sod.

Well, there’s still a next time, I suppose. I shan’t ‘wake up’ another Jaffa till I get to the bottom of this one, in any case.

Might be good to chat with Teal’c about Sai’yo, too. Their reports about each other and me must be corroborated.

But for now….

Enveloped in the cocoon of cushiony things and fluffy blankets, I hum away about peace and safety and comfort and contentment, in hope of lulling the both of us all the way into sleep.

Sai’yo topples first, sooner than I would have thought, burrowing deep into his cocoon and closing his eyes in childlike slumber.

And then another set of melodies, familiar to my primal part, join mine in harmonious company.

Mother. My mother.

I smile, and let myself fall into the waking dreams of my baseline form.


	34. Protecting the Protector

Black Sanctuary, 8th May 2004

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

“When are you going to give us more friends?”

“Huh. What, Luna? Sorry. I don’t understand.”

“More friends, Harry, like Sai’yo.”

“The Jaffa? I think it’ll have to wait for some time. We don’t know enough about him yet. And from what I understand from his whole race, I think he’s the exception, not the norm. I mean, I’m sure he can defend himself well, but others mightn’t be… sciency, or tinkery, and I prefer this to… some war-type. There’s no war to fight, here and now. I’m tired of wars.”

“But what would the others feel if you wait for years and years to introduce them to us, Harry? They would be sad, wouldn’t they?”

“Oh. Erh. Umm. Ah, Luna, can we talk about this later? There are so many things going on right now, you know that. We’ve just discussed it all. You and Neville want your magical explorations; Hermione wants to start making things with her groupies of geniuses; George wants to nab Sai’yo _and Hermione wants him too_ ; I want to get us out of the Ministry’s eye and explore watever and… well, get the Jaffa out of their dependency; Susan and Justin want us to focus more on developing the school here….”

“And Blaise wants more Jaffa to protect you.”

“Luna….”

“Blaise is half right, Harry. If the other Jaffa are not integrated now, they will never be so, and they will despise Sai’yo for being so close to you, in so unfair a manner. Do you hate Sai’yo that much?”

“Uh, erm, no, not at all, really. No. Why?”

“Sai’yo will be the target of bullying, even assassination, if you wait for much longer to release the Jaffa. – No, hear me, Harry. I asked Teal’c much about his society as a whole, disregarding whichever lord or lady any faction is attached to, when you were all busy outfitting him, before we sent him off. My main study may be magical so-called non-sentients… but magical and mundane so-called sentients are not far different.”

“And?”

“The Jaffa have been conditioned for thousands of years and more to a feudal, warrior-centric life, Harry. You never gain progress about Sai’yo calling you other than a lord because, to him, you are his lord. The position of First Prime, it is not only about leading an army in battle, but being a… trusted advisor, to one’s lord or lady, as well as the foremost personal bodyguard, with the authority much more than a Lotar, who is the foremost personal servant of the said lord or lady. – Well, a lotar is a human, usually, a human slave, but that is not the point. The point is, the position of First Prime is a highly coveted one, and you being so close to Sai’yo would be perceived as the other Jaffa never having a chance to advance in rank to that position. You are positioning him as their cultural leader, your Lotar and your First Prime, all in one, but without proclaiming it to anybody, and… well, Teal’c once told me about a fight to the death to determine the leadership that is in dispute.”

I cringe. “No fighting! And I’m not building an army!” It’s bad enough that more than a few of the Residents apparently joined British armed forces to gain knowledge and experience _for my own **nonexistent** armed forces_, as I heard one proud mother confess just this morning. I needn’t a bunch of Jaffa doing the same! And worse, Fawkes deposited the second – _larger_ – load of that bunch just last week, only to go back to Teal’c with _an even larger trunk with triple the number of the stasis disks_ , all courtesy of Hermione and….

_Luna_.

Luna helped Hermione enable Teal’c to… do whatever nefarious thing churning in his mind!

I narrow my eyes at the young woman seated across from me in the room that the Residents have designated as my office in the school building.

She looks back at me with a calm, beatific smile on her dreamy countenance.

“Luna….”

“Yes, Harry?”

“What did you, Hermione and Teal’c plot about me regarding the Jaffa?”

“What made you think you would get that answered, if we indeed plotted about or against you as you said just now?”

“Luna, come on. No joking, please. You’ve put me under enough stress already.”

“Oh. Nobody meant that, Harry. Forgive us.”

“And who is ‘us’?”

“Your friends, your family – your people.”

“So all of you are into it?”

“We would love to protect you, Harry, with how much you have done for us.”

“I…. It’s my duties, you know, and my pleasure, and I never hoped something in return.”

“And that is why we would like to protect you. You are precious to us.”

“Lunaaa!”

“It is true, Harry. Why are you blushing so red? I hope you are not angry with me for telling the truth?”

“ _Argh_! Lunaaa!”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Just tell me, would you? – I thought we were going to free the Jaffa from a must to fight for anybody else and depend on putting Goa’uld babies in their bellies. I thought, _too_ , that we were going to reintegrate the Residents into the greater community.”

“Why do you think we cannot achieve both while protecting you?”

I open my mouth, but then close it again, several times.

Luna smiles sadly at me. I look away.

“The Residents are reintegrating, Harry,” she explains, gently. “You focused on the soldiers, but not all of them are soldiers. You met the scientists, but not all of them are scientists, either. And all of them are _free_ to choose those occupations, family urging notwithstanding, because even in the greater community it does play a role. Daddy wanted me to have babies, for example.”

“Luna…,” I sigh and wipe a hand over my face, unable to prevent myself from chuckling at her tag-on point.

She smiles again, wider and brighter this time, and migrates to the couch that I’ve been occupying. Hugging me sidewise, she continues, “It might be a little different with the Jaffa, who knows… but you will never know if you don’t do anything, if you don’t observe them yourself, Harry. And if you worry for Sai’yo about his people, perhaps you could tell him and ask for his opinion?”

And then, pecking me on the brow, right on my faded lightning-bolt scar, she finishes with a small grin and twinkling eyes, “By the way, Blaise contacted their father, and they contacted your mother. A contingent of milaðen will arrive soon with the sole task of protecting and caring for you.”

“Is there nothing left to be kept to my own self?” I call to her retreating back, as she scampers out of the open door with a little laugh.

“Your own self, of course!” she calls back, peeking briefly back into the room, before vanishing down the hall.

I slump into the couch, sliding farther and farther down till I am seated sprawled on the carpeted floor.

The life as I know it will be ending all too soon.

Unbelievable. And yet, all too believable.

Damn. I must run away _soon_ if I wish for any kind of peace.


	35. The Whole Wide World, Part 1

Chapter note: Folks, there are lots of travelling going round in this chapter, plus explorations of a few famous places. I did my best, using Google to research stations, travel times, items, interior of buildings etc, but I might be mistaken, as I am not English and have never been there. Please let me know if I missed something or ten. Thank you. - Rey

Green Park Tube Station, 8th May 2004

I managed to escape everyone’s attention after dinner, grab the essentials and Sai’yo, put a Glamour and some Muggle concealer on our respective forehead markings, and flee with him to Grimmauld, whence we walked to Highbury&Islington tube station while I explained that our exploration of the wider world was starting then and there. Belatedly and sheepishly, I asked him if he had any previous appointments or wanted to grab something of his first, or if he’d rather explore later, in which case I would have left him where he wanted and proceeded with the exploration alone. But, thankfully, he only asked if he could have some weapon with which to defend himself and me.

“Guns aren’t allowed to be owned and carried by most civilians here,” I told him apologetically. “We can’t defend ourselves that lethally, too. Just… if there’s anything fishy, maybe it’s better if we run away. Hand-to-hand fighting is okay when warranted, I suppose.” It brought Luna’s points about the Jaffa culture starkly to mind, meanwhile, which made me pause mid-step, however briefly. It’s… daunting, as apparently not even _Sai’yo_ – a mild, calm, sciency type – is exempt from the warrior-centric mindset.

Or, in a more ugly alternative, he got bullied so much that he needed a weapon to defend himself, constantly.

But all disturbing thoughts of Sai’yo and his past and his people got set aside, with my profuse if unspoken gratitude to the designers and builders of the tube station, as we arrived at our first destination. This Jaffa seems to have perfected the art of observing things without looking like observing things, and it’s quite a treat to watch him interestedly taking everything in.

It’s admitedly preferable, too, to towing someone like Hagrid or Mr. Weasley along like I experienced before, as they attracted so much attention while indulging in their curiosity.

And, now….

“ _That_ is a transportation called the tube, or underground train,” I whisper grinningly as Sai’yo and I exit the said train. “It’s Saturday night, so people are still out and about, though it’s not so early in the evening anymore. Now, do you want to try another tube? Or a bus?”

“What is a bus?” is his curious reply. So, well, that clinches it, then.

Harrods, 8th May 2004

“Umm. I don’t know what to buy first,” I admit as, after an equally interesting bus ride – for Sai’yo, at least, if not as much for me – we stand just inside the department store that is Harrods, which is even fuller than the tube and the bus this weekend night. In my first excursion here with Justin and the others, I only bought one set of formal clothes, and that was after Justin urged me most convincingly. But now I bring nothing but my self-updating ledgers – my ever-present House-work – and Muggle money and my wand and…. Well, in short, truly just the essentials and no food nor drink and not even a change of clothes. And Sai’yo is even worse than I am, especially with his sad pair of grey Jaffa uniform, boots included.

And then Sai’yo’s attention got hooked on the bookstore….

Savoy Hotel, 8th May 2004

“Umm. I think I chose wrong,” I mutter when our hotel escort opens the door to our room for the night for us. – Sai’yo and I have been kitted out fully, after I have managed to wheedle him out of the bookstore quite a few pounds lighter with my bribe of a dozen books about transportation, and we’re ready to turn in for the night or at least relax a little. I chose the Savoy because the Dursleys were always raving about it after a one weekend spent there, said to be some bonus from Grunnings for Uncle Vernon’s good performance for the year. Quite a posh hotel for refined people, Aunt Petunia said, not for the likes of a freak like me. I silently burnt with offence, that time; but now… not.

No, this type of hotel is not for me. Not because I am a freak, though. I just…. My bedroom has always been limited, utilitarian, or limited and utilitarian, and this room – though the cheapest in the hotel, I was informed at the lobby – is quite the opposite. It’s so… posh; grand, with intricately carved wooden furniture and delicate wallpapers and paintings.

Well, at least the beds seem to be comfy, and it’s all I need for the night, aside from the bathroom.

“Thank you for showing us,” I tell the escort, a little dazedly, after he is apparently finished with explaining the features of the room. “Umm. Good night.”

He bows himself out with a smile that seems rather forced.

Only some time after the door is closed do I remember that, at the shopping and eating establishments we visited in our excursion that forever ago, Justin usually left a little bit of money for the servers and helpers.

Oh. Damn. Poor escort. – Well, hopefully I see him again tomorrow and can give him the “tip,” then.

“You want to take a shower first?” I offer while stretching and making a beeline to the window.

“I can use the cleaning facilities when you are not using it,” is my roommate’s answer… and, go figure, seated at the desk, he is already deep in one of his books.

“Bookworm,” I smile, while peeping between the rich curtains, out to the nighttime busy thoroughfare outside and below. “The books won’t go anywhere, you know. I might borrow one or two, but certainly not now.” Not now, because there are so many things to see, even something as mundane as rows of vehicle lights parading down the lamplit roads below, which are flanked by so many high buildings that must be a sight on their own during the day.

I move away from the window only when Sai’yo approaches and reports that he has used the facilities.

“Oh,” I blink. “Wow. Okay. Thanks.” I never thought that the window-framed scene of a nighttime city road could have transfixed me for so long.

It just inspires me to seek other scenes, other venues… _others_.

I wish I bought a camera, while we were at Harrods. Oh well. Tomorrow, then. There is still tomorrow. And tomorrow we will still be free to do whatever we wish, hopefully.

For now, the bathroom and bed are calling.


	36. The Whole Wide World, Part 2

Chapter notes: The resort in Dover featured in this chapter is fictitious, as I had neither the time nor the chance to research possible real-life lodgings round the area. On another matter, I heard somewhere – whether canon, fanon or just someone’s idea – that the maiden surname of Hermione’s mother is Puckle, so I am using it here. - Rey

Dover, 9th May 2004

“I must exercise more, don’t I?” I gasp and pant as Sai’yo acts as my crutch along the chalkstone path. “Ten miles…. Thought I could do it…. N’you’re older than me!”

The Jaffa smiles. He looks barely tired, although he does perspire from the late-spring sun beating down on us. And he’s carrying _two_ packs – mine and his. So _embarrassing_. I thought spending the day hiking along the Cliffs of Dover would be a nice new thing to do after our posh accomodation last night! And here I feel like I’m about to faint while the fatherly-looking Sai’yo is still all too fresh….

“There are sights to see,” he offers. “Would you like to stop and record them? The view of the sea on this particular point is… nice.”

In other words, ‘go rest’. And it’s not the first time he suggested it to me. _And_ , each time, I got to accept it, for the sake of my wheezing breath and puddly muscles.

Yeah. Embarrassing.

**O-O-O-O**

“Woo-hoo!”

I wish we took this way to see the cliffs, instead of hiking all day long. Sitting at the front of a boat while it’s rushing through and leaping over and cleaving the waves is so _fun_!

Well, and now I get to see Sai’yo looking as ill as I must have looked while hiking, too. Apparently, the tough Jaffa is seasick….

Pity. I was going to ask if we could travel with a liner ship to somewhere far, like United States or even Asia.

Well, maybe I’ll still ask, with more books as bribe and a good supply of stomach soother as additional promise.

But for now….

“Whee!”

**O-O-O-O**

“The bane of weekend outings: packed restaurants,” I muse aloud with a sigh as Sai’yo and I approach a road-side eatery near the port, fresh from the boat ride. Our gait is unsteady, our clothes are damp – well, wet, in my case – from the sprays and the drenching of the waves, and I am sure that we are famished despite the nausea from overexertion and seasickness, respectively. But, unfortunately, it’s not just the two of us who think that refuelling our bodies is an immediate must.

And true to the look of the parking lot that we see and go through outside, also the view into the restaurant through the floor-to-ceiling half-transparent windows, it turns out that there’s no empty table inside, or out on the back porch overlooking the sea.

Worse, we passed by two other eating establishments before coming here, and they were even fuller than this.

“You good enough for a takeaway, Sai’yo?” I ask my companion as we approach one of the waitresses milling round.

“Takeaway?” the Jaffa parrots from behind me, sounding confused.

“Food packaged to eat elsewhere,” I explain, then signal to the waitress I aimed for. “Hello, miss. Do you serve takeaway food?”

“You will have to enter your orders to the waiting list if you wish for a takeaway, sir,” she replies apologetically. Then, perhaps pitying my dejected look, she adds that, if we wouldn’t mind sharing a table with a stranger, we needn’t queue just to eat elsewhere.

“There is one table that is occupied by just one woman,” Sai’yo pipes in, apparently having looked round right as he hears the new info.

I nod to him and smile gratefully at the waitress. “All right, then. We’ll ask her. Thanks for your help, miss.”

And, without further ado, Sai’yo leads me to the aforementioned table, which happens to be situated outside, on the farthest reach of the porch.

“Neat,” I comment happily, before stepping up to the woman seated facing the seascape and gearing myself up mentally for an interaction with a total stranger. Then, “Hello, miss. Would you mind sharing the table with us? Everywhere else is full.”

Déjà vu…. I’m like Ron in our first train ride to Hogwarts…. Damn. I miss you, Ron.

Thankfully, before my thoughts can spiral into maudlin-land, the woman tears her gaze away from the seascape and scrutinises us curiously, one by one, from head to toe.

I smile at her, self-consciously. Sai’yo, now standing behind me again, tenses up.

And the woman notices.

“Your companion doesn’t seem to like me,” she remarks, fortunately with a smile back at me and sounding more amused and curious than truly offended.

Her dialect sounds foreign, too. Maybe North American. Nice. We’re meeting a tourist from abroad!

“Just overprotective,” I grin apologetically at her blunt observation. “It’s our first adventure, and we’re trying to have fun. Just, it’s hard to set aside some habbits.”

She nods and motions us to take a seat. My grin turns into a grateful smile, while I let Sai’yo choose first – and he takes the spot with his back facing the fence. “Thank you, miss. You are a stomach saver!” I exclaim theatrically while taking the seat facing the rest of the porch.

She laughs. “Long day?” she asks, while waving a hand for a passing, harried-looking waiter.

“ _Very_ long,” I agree ruefully. “I couldn’t take the hike and my friend here couldn’t take the waves.”

She grins, teasingly. “Ever tried the air?”

I laugh, in turn. “Loved it. Miss it,” I confess. “Only, there’s no air-related experience to be had, here.”

“Fix your eyes, and you can go into air force,” she suggests smilingly.

“Experienced with that, miss?” I smile back, though privately I wince. I keep myself in this form to honour my parents – _human_ parents – including wearing the specs that James Potter was known for other than his messy hair. I even went on this adventure in this form because I dreamt of it while in a much smaller version of it, back when my bedroom was the cupboard under the stairs of Privet Drive number four.

Yep. I’m a ridiculous, irrational, sappy sod, and rather proud of it.

And, praised be my new acquaintance, she chooses a good time to break me out of my private introspection.

“Not really that area,” she beams proudly. “Janet Fraiser, doctor for US Air Force.” She reaches out a hand for a handshake, first to me then to Sai’yo.

“Harry Black, and this is my friend Sai’yo,” I nod. “We’re just hoping to experience many new things, before we go back to work.”

“And your work is, if I might ask?” she prods.

“Lots.” I roll my eyes, rueful. “Looking after a school, properties, people, science club, people, money, people….”

“Busy much?” She raises an eyebrow, partly amused and partly… confused? Suspicious?

“Much,” I agree, as I begin to flip the menu book that the waiter she beckoned has just handed me. “Thanks. – Umm. I think I should eat something light…. My stomach still feels like a blender. Fun trip, though.”

“Salad?” the waiter recommends with a smile. “We also have this.” He points at a particular picture on the page I happen to be on. “It is seafood broth which you could eat with either bread or rice.”

I hum noncommittally and peek through the corner of my eye at the remnants of Janet Fraiser’s meal still spread on the table in front of her. I can detect some kind of steak and… salad, perhaps.

“I’ll have what she had,” I decide after a beat, throwing a small smile at the US Air Force doctor seated perpendicular to me. “Steak and salad, right?”

“ _Fish_ steak and veggy salad with light dressing,” she nods.

I give Sai’yo a narrow-eyed look when he agrees with my choice, though. It just seems… fishy, because he seemed to be interested in something on another page entirely and didn’t try to look at what other people are eating, unlike me. But we are among strangers, so I shan’t confront him presently.

In our next lodging is another matter entirely.

And, speaking of which….

“Do you know a hotel near here that is good and… natural, Miss Fraiser?” I ask when the waiter is gone, with the additional orders of two glasses of Coca-Cola – and Sai’yo, again, expressed no personal opinion on the matter.

“Define natural.” She raises her eyebrows.

“Something nature-like?” I hedge. “Truth be told, yesterday was our first experience in a hotel, and I think we chose wrong. It was… too posh.”

She chuckles. “Too ritsy?” she clarifies. “Well, you’re throwing away many people’s dreams, then.” But she does recommend us a small resort not so far away that overlooks the English Channel, which also features a rock-climbing training package. Neat! I can only hope that I won’t embarrass myself like in our hiking excursion today.

We spend most of the time eating in silence, afterwards. When she speaks, Ms. Fraiser mostly addresses me, too, instead of dividing her attention between me and Sai’yo. I don’t try to redirect her attention only because she doesn’t seem to mean ill to Sai’yo by excluding him from the conversation, and Sai’yo himself seems perfectly contented with himself and his meal… barring a slight incident when he drinks his cola and I forgot to warn him about the carbonation.

Well, and, again, this is not something that I am comfortable confronting in the open like this.

_And_ , as our conversation progresses slowly, I find out that Janet Fraiser is the daughter of Emma Fraiser nee Puckle, who was the elder sister of Emilia Granger nee Puckle.

_Hermione’s mother_.

In fact, she has been in England for a week searching for her aunt’s family, as they have lost contact with each other when her own mother died of cancer and she began her career at the US Air Force, right round the time Hermione Obliviated her parents.

But, if I tell her now about Hermione, I won’t be able to try a night at the resort she mentioned….

Eh. For once, I harden my heart and say nothing, with a promise to myself to acquire a mobile phone for myself – and maybe another for Sai’yo – before we turn in for the night, so that I can tell her about Hermione tomorrow, as she has just given me her mobile’s number.

A coward’s way, perhaps, but it’s still a win-win solution in my book.

I’ve got other matters to delve into, in any case, namely Sai’yo’s refusal or inability to choose for himself and the probability that other Jaffa will have this problem, and also his ability to be virtually invisible to people, forgetable.

Go figure. Even in a holiday, I can’t have a total holiday.


	37. The Whole Wide World, Part 3

Chapter note: Artistic license for the interior and facilities of Queen Mary 2, with advance apologies to any offended party. For the sake of this story, whether or not some facilities are there, they are still there. I am shamelessly claiming the old argument of “It is fanfiction, folks.” - Rey

RMS Queen Mary 2, 10th May 2004

**HERMIONE GRANGER  
Harry, where are you? We are worried! You told nobody and the elves refused to say anything. We know you are still alive only because they are calm about your absence.**

**HERMIONE GRANGER  
Harry, if you do not tell me by tomorrow, I shall tell the Ministry that you are missing. Please respond. I hate telling the Ministry. They are already hunting you.**

**HERMIONE GRANGER  
Harry, my cousin Janet contacted me today. Did you meet her? Where? When? Why did you not tell me? Thank you for not telling her about my parents, but please tell me where you are.**

**HERMIONE GRANGER  
Harry, what are you doing with Sai’yo? Why did you bring just him? We agreed to travel together, didn’t we? Why didn’t you wait for me and the others? Why didn’t you take some other Jaffa for protection?**

I open my communication journal only now that Sai’yo and I are comfily ensconced in our room in the ocean liner headed to New York, and I find that most of the _many_ messages inside came from Hermione.

Within the nearly seventy-two hours since I skedaddled from my comfort zone among my properties and people, she has sent me _a hundred and forty-three_ messages, along the same vane as “Where are you? What are you doing? Why didn’t you bring me?” and a number of updates, also quite a few threats to organise search parties in one way or another.

Huh. Her blending with Arga only makes her nosier and pushier, apparently.

And it doesn’t do well for my stress level.

Then again, Sai’yo seemed rather stressed – in that quiet, unobvious way of his – when I confronted him about him not wanting to choose and participate in conversations that involve strangers.

What a pair of sorry sods we are.

And presently, one of the sorry sods is tied up doing his House-work, while the other is…. Hmm, he’s… humming in his sleep?

It’s a soft, peaceful melody, unobvious but sneakily permeating, just like he is. But the hummer is laid out comfily on his back under his blanket, with eyes closed and face relaxed, and breathing softly, shallowly.

In fact, the notes are rather similar to what I used to make myself and him fall asleep in my nest at Black Lodge, and the effect likewise. It makes me more relaxed and even a little drowsy, at least.

Sneaky bugger. He might have noticed me scowl at my communication journal and… sought to alleviate it, perhaps, while lullabying himself to sleep. Or maybe he’s seeking to avoid the turbulance as we’re departing the harbour, presently. Or maybe both.

In any case, his version of the Song makes me not in the mood to rant and rave at Hermione… or reply to her at all, to be honest, but I _must_ , or she’ll really do one of the things that she threatened.

So….

**HARRY POTTER  
I am safe. Sai’yo is safe. I asked the elves not to tell people where we are and not to come unless I call for our safety and privacy. We are adventuring. No need to look for us.**

And then, with a last look at the “balcony room” that we got for ourselves – with lots of Notice-Me-Nots, also an anonymous deposit equal to the rate in the company’s bank account – I stash the journal away in my pack and lay myself down in my bed beside Sai’yo’s.

The ships thrums and shakes and rolls, accompanied with a few toots of its horn, and still, Sai’yo’s humble little song permeates the little, half-stolen cabin.

I smile contentedly at the whitewashed ceiling and let my eyelids droop. A moment after, my own little song joins his in harmony.

RMS Queen Mary 2, 13th May 2004

For these four days, I can only say: “Thank magic for all the favours.” Because, not only is our room hidden by magical concealment – now upgraded to a ward of my own moulding, just below Fidelius – and our faces likewise, but our packs have also been expanded to contain all the trinkets, books and single photos that we have acquired in all the ports where the liner stopped by. Now that we are crossing the Atlantic ocean, all the things we bought serve to entertain us, as well, while we are not exploring the whole ship and… chatting – or rather, me trying to pry some honest, blunt, willing answers from Sai’yo.

Unfortunately, the interrogation is the least amount of distraction that I manage to have, in all the days we are sailing aboard this ship. I just… don’t have the heart to bother the not-old-looking grandpa Jaffa when he is observing his growing collection, reading or tinkering. He looks so peaceful, then, and even tender – when regarding a few trinkets in particular.

However, I did manage to get out of him, early on, that his version of kel’no’reem often requires the aid of music, especially when he is distracted, unsettled or stressed out. And he did confess, somewhat freely, that my version of a lullaby back at Black Lodge was worth five kel’no’reem sessions altogether.

I’ve been lulling the both of us to sleep every night since then.

And now, I am playing catch-the-ball with a three-year-old while Sai’yo is helping her parents fix her suitcase, which is in a sorry state after she pushed it down the stairs of the last hotel the family stayed in. I helped him borrow the repair equipment from the ship’s crew, and I am used to repairing things myself with how the Dursleys behaved to me, but that very reminder is what made me bow out of the repair work. Dealing with a little child may be awkward, but it still counts as a new experience. It is free of any Dursley influence but for the fact that I never got to play with children my age or younger, given the bad rumours they perpetrated about me.

Well, but I never expected that I was going to be her makeup mannequin, afterwards….

**O-O-O-O**

Our next thorough exploration brings us out of the residential areas and onto the entertainment floor, which features a swimming pool among others, and, “It is… odd, to put a body of water in a ship, which is sailing in a much larger body of water,” Sai’yo blurts out, though still in his quiet voice, sounding – _and looking_ – quite flabbergasted and baffled.

I laugh. Loudly. Till it echoes in the tiled surroundings and, naturally, attracts attention from the swimmers and loiterers. But I can’t help it! His floored look is so unusually and unexpectedly funny! And….

“I don’t understand it too!” I whisper conspiratorially to him when I can get a grip on my laughter, though barely, shielding my mouth with one hand.

Our eyes meet, and my laughter burst free again, noticing the utter bewilderment shining in his.

“We’ve… we’ve got… to… see about a book… or a film… to… explain… this,” I sputter, with my free hand waving at the swimming pool, then drown in giggles once more as I make my not-so-steady way to the row of shops lining the other side of the swimming-pool area, opposite the changing stalls and loos and lockers.

One of them turns out to be a shop for renting and buying swimming costumes.

Now, I got an idea….

“Sai’yo, have you ever tried swimming?”

**O-O-O-O**

Apparently, the Jaffa never live in a lush planet with lots of clean water and other resources, let alone varied entertainment, regardless to which lord or lady Goa’uld they belong, and Chulak – under Apophis – is one of the best there is, hence the immense size of Apophis’ Jaffa… and, consequently, his armed forces. Sai’yo revealed this as I taught him swimming, which I was relearning, myself, after years and years of not practising. It makes me think harder about finding good places for Teal’c’s shipments of Jaffa to settle in, should they wish to stay with me.

Judging from how happy he looked, watching a random film at the on-board cinema after our swimming session, a Muggle-friendly place ought to be one of the options.

And judging by how many and varied the properties that I own, plus my ignorance of Jaffa everything except for language – that, Teal’c gave me as tool to aid his covert campaign – I must consult Sai’yo for this.

And, something which Andy impressed on me emphatically, I _must_ secure his loyalty first before I give him access to my House-related ledgers, as the lives of my people could be in great danger should I be betrayed, accidentally or not.

Damn. This could have been a nice, good surprise gift for him….

But, well, in any case, I can’t procrastinate any longer, as Neville has just contacted me via comm journal, saying that Fawkes has delivered _the third trunk full of Jaffa_ to him. The whole group – which now includes many of the Residents are frantically modifying _the fourth_ , now, while Hermione and her posse are churning out stasis disks and the house-elves are cooking ready meals like mad, to be delivered along with the trunk.

Things are spiralling out of hand, fast.

To think that this is supposed to be _a holiday_.


	38. Moving Forward Half a Step

RMS Queen Mary 2, 14th May 2004

“Are you sure, Sai’yo? You can’t really undo a vow, and here you’re taking it in two versions. We could find another way for you to help me with things.”

“You told me to think carefully about what you asked of me for the night.”

“…Yes?”

“It is morning already.”

“…And?”

“I am ready to swear my loyalty to you, my lord.”

“Sai’yo… what did I tell you about calling me _that_?”

“But after this, you are going to be my lord in truth, for the remainder of my life.”

“Aren’t you the least bit concerned about exchanging Apophis for me? Especially if – and I mean _if_ – I can’t find something else to sustain you, other than a baby Goa’uld? Don’t you want to spend your life tinkering to your heart’s content and exploring the world and reading a ton of books?”

“Are you going to assign me to work all day on the matters of your holdings?”

“Nope. Just about the Jaffa, most likely, and I thought of a helper or two later on, so you and I can still do things like this, if you want.”

“Are you going to torture or kill me if I make a mistake or displease you in any way?”

“Of course not!”

“Are you going to rest all knowledge and ideas from me, in whatever way you wish?”

“Of course not!”

“Am I free to call you ‘my lord’?”

“Of–. _Sai’yo_!”

The damned Jaffa _smiles teasingly_ at me, from his seat on his bed.

I grab my pillow and hit him with it on the shoulder.

“A hard object would give more impact,” he points out, still smiling, though no longer teasing.

I hit him again, now on the other shoulder.

“If this is to be my punishment for _deliberately_ displeasing you, you are already far better than Apophis,” he continues, his calm tone never wavering.

I huff and return my pillow back to its place, suddenly losing the desire to hit him. “What a mad, sneaky grandpa,” I grumble, mostly to myself.

His smile turns gentle, just so.

**O-O-O-O**

“We’re going to reach land in two more days, they said.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t have any more ports to visit, ‘sept for the destination.”

“Yes.”

“We can work on plans about the Jaffa, then, after we’ve explored this ship, without much distraction.”

“Yes.”

“Sigh. You know all this already, don’t you.”

“Yes.”

“That is a retorical question, Sai’yo.”

“Yes.”

And my pillow sees action again, as I hit my first, acknowledged, sworn human – well, Jaffa, which is pretty similar to human – servant with it, now on the chest.

**O-O-O-O**

Even in such a need as to revive and integrate and relocate – if necessary – the Jaffa in the trunks as soon and well as possible, procrastination is still an art… and still doable.

Back from a second visit to the swimming pool and the cinema, Sai’yo and I are now browsing the souvenir shop on-board, with a plan to visit the café for some snacks afterwards.

“You think Mione’ll like this?” I hold up a light-pink T-shirt with the side profile and the name of the ship printed rather stylishly on the front.

In answer, Sai’yo silently exchanges it with a photo album whose front cover features the same image.

“Ooh! Neat! I want one, too! You want one, Sai’yo?” I beam at him, pressing the album close against my chest.

Again, without a word, he briefly goes away and comes back toting more albums.

“Why four? You want three?” I wonder, after noticing how high the pile is.

“The photographs that you and I took in this journey are too many to put in one album, my lord,” he speaks at last, though tagging the despised title at the end.

Before my scowl is fully formed, though, somebody nearby repeats, “My lord?” She sounds puzzled, _but also intrigued_.

Sai’yo seems as calm as before, probably having noticed her beforehand, but I whirl round, and my eyes meet those of an elderly, stately woman dressed in simple but elegant-looking – to me, at least – blouse and calf-long skirt.

“Hello,” I blurt out, not knowing what else to do or say. “Could I help you, ma’am?”

She smiles. “A lord, indeed. What a polite gentleman,” she remarks, reaching out a hand, with her eyes twinkling. “Catherine Langford, at your service, my lord.”

I fight _not_ to make a face at her. Shaking her hand warmly, I plead, “I am Harry Black, ma’am. Please just call me either of those two, not… that.”

She sobers up a little. “Newly into the title, Black?” she inquires, apologetically and sympathetically.

I shake my head. “Knew about it just several years ago. Parents died when I was one and my life wasn’t good till some time ago.”

We fall into conversation, just so. I am somewhat aware that Sai’yo has moved away, apparently browsing and selecting items, but I am easily distracted by the said conversation.

Catherine Langford is a very intriguing woman who not only has a decorative academic life but also – more importantly, in fact – a quick wit gentled with wry humour. She has a worldly view on matters far more widespread than what I know, too… which I blame my sheltered, stunted upbringing, when she asks.

We agree to meet at the on-board café this evening to continue our conversation, when Sai’yo returns with a pile of items, _none of which is for him_ , and I become irritated with him all anew.

I wave good-bye at old Ms. Langford distractedly, while lecturing to my ‘second in command’ – but, most importantly, _my friend_ – about this adventure being _supposed_ to be for _us_ , hence also most of the knick-knacks that we gather.

And, now having moved to the door of the shop, old Ms. Langford laughs lightly at us – most likely at my petulant irritation and Sai’yo’s flummoxed and somewhat long-suffering look.

Great.

We might appear like a child chiding his father or uncle and the said father or uncle indulging the brat.

My reputation is hopelessly ruined.

**O-O-O-O**

Power, courage, endurance and honour are the values that the Jaffa as a people uphold, not necessarily in that order. Living in limited environment and bred specifically to serve _self-titled_ gods as soldiers, servants, breeders and priests, the point of the values is sadly understandable.

And this lecture about Jaffa culture is what I got when I told Sai’yo – in the privacy of our half-purloined room on-board – that I am about to release the rest of the Jaffa from their stasis disks soon.

“Shouldn’t we be talking about environment, first?” I ask, bemused but very much interested.

But for once since I first knew him, Sai’yo gives me a stern eye.

“My lord,” he emphasises the title, “the first view that each of them will see is _you_ , not their surroundings. It was also my experience.”

I slump against the bulkhead right beside my bed. “So, you mean I haven’t looked powerful, brave, enduring or honorable enough?”

“You should look to Teal’c for those values, my lord, not me,” is what he says in return. “I would be a very poor example.”

I frown. “Bullied much?”

He waves a hand a little in a shrug.

I scowl, and shake my head after a thought. “No,” I decide, more bitterly than I intended to sound. “They can accept me as I am, or not at all. I never meant to be anybody’s lord but my own self, anyway. They can spend the rest of their lives in one of the properties, or integrate to the greater community, and I shan’t bother them, as long as they don’t bother me or others.” Trying to meet their expectations of me would just lead to grief to me, I bet, just like defeating Voldemort and trying to be an Auror, and I doubt I can survive more or less intact with more and more grief piled on top of those.

Sai’yo flashes me a sharp glance, before he looks down to his lap, where he has been fitting his photos into the albums that I got him to buy for himself.

“Why are you different from those people, anyway?” I ask before he can say anything, again more defensively than I’d like to sound – he’s managed to rattle me, it seems. “Why don’t you view Apophis as god?”

He gives his collection of photos a small, bitter smile, to that. Bingo.

I feel no pride at all for nailing the problem right on the head, though. Especially when he mutters heatedly, still without looking at me, “My mother was much more powerful than Apophis, but for the love she held for my father. If she never met him, and never grew to care greatly for him, she would never have had to surrender for the sake of his life. Apophis turned her into a Jaffa, and it weakened her greatly, cutting her life short.”

I could have pointed out that he would not have been born, then, if his mother never met and fell in love with his father. But I hold back, because I know _very well_ that certain types of life is not worth living, and the only thing left is empty survival.

Instead, I blurt out, “So you think love is a weakness, then?” which is no less bad, but… more general, and closer to my heart.

My own human mother died for love of me, after all.

I tell him that, along with the assumption that she used a willing blood sacrifice to shield me from the Killing Curse, when he confirms my guess.

“Was she weak, to sacrifice her life so that her child could live, in the only way that she knew?” I finish quietly.

He looks at me, then, with the bitterness and grief that I am sure are mirrored in my own eyes.

“No,” he whispers, reluctantly.

“But we wish they lived, instead of us,” I conclude for the both of us.

And he doesn’t deny the statement.

**O-O-O-O**

“A bad time to meet?” Catherine greets us kindly as Sai’yo and I move over to her table at the on-board café.

I smile weakly at her. “Just a little discussion that got heavy,” I demur. “You seem even brighter, though, ma’am. Good news?”

“Maybe,” she smiles a little back at me, then nods at the two empty, comfy-looking, velvety, padded rounded armchairs set at a triangle with her position at the low, round glass table. “It depends.”

“On?” I inquire politely, while taking my seat and immediately burrowing deep into it, hugging the chair’s complementary fluffy pillow to my chest.

“On if my hunch is correct,” she smiles meaningfully at Sai’yo, now, who has just taken a seat himself.

He stiffens up.

I lean forward, interested. “What with Sai’yo?” I inquire.

“Sai’yo, is it? Hello. Pleased to meet you.” The old woman leans forward and reaches out a hand to the cornered-looking Jaffa. “Catherine Langford, and I don’t bite.”

He reaches out a hand… and grasps her forearm.

Her whole face lights up, on the not-so-ordinary reaction and greeting, and she… grasps his forearm back.

“A warrior, are you?” she grins, now looking mightily interested. “I read that a few warrior-based communities do that. Met some of them.”

“So, what made you so interested with my friend, aside from that?” I try to save the said friend from further attention, by directing it – however reluctantly – to me.

Ms. Langford returns to her earlier countenance and posture, just so. But, unfortunately, she still doesn’t look away from Sai’yo.

“Oh, something,” she says. Then, without breaking eye contact with him, she fishes out something from beneath her blouse.

A golden pendant with a rather intricate design, hung on a golden necklace with thick chains.

And Sai’yo stiffens up further as the pendant rests in the open against her breastbone.

“Sai’yo?” I reach out a hand and pat his. “You know that symbol?”

“It is Ra’s symbol,” he bites out lowly after a beat. “Tattooed on the brow of his people.”

His people. His Jaffa. – Ra is a Goa’uld, then; most likely _the_ Goa’uld that Hermioned mentioned as being Apophis’ brother and currently foremost rival.

“Oh,” I mumble, perturbed. My hand falls limply from his.

Is Ms. Langford a Goa’uld? Or an agent of the Goa’uld? Or a Jaffa with a necklace instead of a forehead tattoo? She doesn’t behave like any of those, but wouldn’t a spy behave “normally” while in an infiltration mission?

My eyes meet hers, and she looks concerned and surprised, with little of her earlier interest remaining.

“The Ancient Egyptians got tattoos on their foreheads?” she queries, cautious and hesitant.

“The Ancient Egyptians?” Sai’yo parrots, confused. I am equally stumped.

“Ra is the sun god for them. Don’t you know that, if you know the name?” It is her turn to be stumped by us, apparently.

Sai’yo and I look at each other. I am pretty sure that his uh-oh look mirrors mine.

“Oh,” she mutters, sighing. “Long story? Or you signed a non-disclosure agreement?”

“Umm. Both, ma’am,” I reply cautiously, tearing my gaze away from a flummoxed Sai’yo. “If I might ask, ma’am, where did you get that necklace?”

She raises her eyebrows and seems to think about it for a moment.

“A deal?” she finally offers. “I tell you, and you tell me. An NDA is on the table, if you want it.”

I look inquiringly at Sai’yo.

He gives me a shruggy look back.

I slump into my chair and exhale explosively. – Damn. We need the info, but I _can’t_ disclose who Sai’yo is, as it will lead to many, many, many more info, which will jeopardise not only my friends and the Jaffa still in stasis but also the Statute of Secrecy.

“Let us think about it for a while?” I ask the sharp old woman seated with us. “In the meantime, would you mind having dinner with us, ma’am?”

Her satisfied and eager look feels like the sight of a green glow at the end of a wand to me….


	39. New York

Chapter note: Again, artistic license is claimed for the sight of the harbour at the beginning of the chapter, and a few titbits afterwards, for the sake of the story. Bare with me? - Rey

RMS Queen Mary 2, 16th May 2004

My relatively brand-new mobile phone has two numbers in it, now. Awesome.

More awesome… and much less so, at the same time… Ms. Langford’s famous-archeologist father found one of the Chappa’ai – the Stargates – that Teal’c once mentioned in one of the archeological sites he presided on. By the temple dedicated to _Ra_. Nearly eighty years ago. And the said Stargate has been in the United States government’s hands since then. United States _military_ , to be exact.

Yep. Sai’yo and I exchanged information with the sharp old woman, in the end, after Hermione’s team advised us on a magical contract that would work with Muggles and be as airtight as possible. – I must reveal the fact that the contract we signed is binding in more than the usual sense because of my special ability, and the said ability is hereditary. Sai’yo must reveal the fact that he is a Jaffa who used to work for Apophis, and Ra is just as real as Apophis. And Ms. Langford must reveal her story about the necklace, which she nicked when the adults at that time were distracted by the Stargate.

It’s… overwhelming, to be honest; even now, the day after all the revelations.

And the sight of the harbour the ship is carefully approaching is no less overwhelming: more hectic than the one in South Ampton, with the background of the Statue of Liberty, which really brings to mind that _I am presently nearing a foreign soil_.

“First time out of your homeland?” Ms. Langford, standing to my right with her hands lightly placed on the railing, asks softly.

I nod mutely, with my eyes still glued on the famous statue, which is half shadowed by the sunset.

“Come to my home if you feel overwhelmed, Harry. We can chat,” she offers kindly, placing one wrinkled but strong hand over mine, which is gripping the railing. “That offer is for you too, Sai’yo.” She throws a smile to the aforementioned Jaffa, who is standing to my left and gripping the railing far harder than I am.

The ship rocks a little as we get closer. I put a hand on Sai’yo’s shoulder – more the crook of his neck, really, where his skin is not covered by his T-shirt – and channel a little bit of magic into him, in hope of soothing him. I already asked him to stay in our room and kel’no’reem till the ship’s moored at the pier, but he insisted to accompany me. What a stubborn and loyal friend… and still suspicious of Ms. Langford, I bet.

“You might find interesting remnants and titbits of history if you went into archeology,” Ms. Langford goes for another try to distract me as the ship finally docks and things seem… realer, thus even more overwhelming.

I chuckle nervously, with one hand still laid on Sai’yo’s shoulder and the other still grasped by the sharp _but kindly_ old woman. “Looking for an apprentice, ma’am?”

She joins me in soft laughter. “Too old for that,” she demurs with a smile. “I could refer you to a few people, however. Big names in archeology.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we got the small names first?” I reply with my own smile, which is sadly rather wobbly.

“No.” She pats my hand again. “Only the best for my young friend and his loyal companion.” Then she continues rather impishly, “But for that, I require visits and calls from the both of you, preferably regularly.”

I catch her hand in mine and, smiling, proclaim, “Deal.”

Manhattan, 16th May 2004

The sights, sounds, smells and feels of a busy city are always overwhelming, whether in London or in New York.

And now, I am finding out that the latter is more overwhelming than the former, especially because I am still acutely aware that we are traversing a foreign country.

Judging from how close Sai’yo is keeping to my person, he feels the same. He even puts a hand on my shoulder, though he does it tentatively at first, as we walk through throngs of rushing pedestrians.

My. We are overdue for some quiet and peace, I fear. If my pride and the time would allow it, I would have even considered dropping by Ms. Langford’s house right away….

JW Marriott Hotel, 16th May 2004

Bliss.

It is what I feel – with total relief – as I throw myself down on my stomach on the bed nearest the door, even before the escort manages to say anything but “This is your room, sirs.”

The position holds even after the escort is gone, bowing himself out soon after he turns on everything from the air conditioner to the telly for us, with no response from me and Sai’yo.

I am just…. The rush of people outside was just _too much_. If a Sunday night is always like this, I never want to know how a Saturday night is like.

Sai’yo is of the same mind, apparently, for soon I hear him humming a little unsteadily on the bed adjacent to mine. He is trying to anchor himself with kel’no’reem, no doubt, just as I am grounding myself with this prolonged bellyflop on this soft, clean, comfy, steady, silent surface.

Well, I guess, I can add “sleeping” into the mix, despite the not-so-late hour. I didn’t get much sleep after Ms. Langford’s revelation yesterday, after all, and Sai’yo seemed equally preoccupied.

So, with an equally unsteady beginning, right where I am and in the same position, I match his humming and slowly add more variations and power into it, more and more as they come into my mind as if recorded by my earliest memory: peace-content-comfort-safety, home-quiet-secure-nice, rest-snug-protection-love….

I slide into dreamland still Singing.

JW Marriott Hotel, 17th May 2004

I slide out of dreamland fully rejuvenated and with a fresh longing for my mother – any of my mothers, preferably both alien and human.

Well, and feeling like a thirteen-year-old, too, but that’s maybe just the side effect of my Singing earlier, which always reverts me to my baseline… and I happen to be in a set of non-stretchy clothes, so no turning into my beyond-six-feet body.

I spend more time luxuriating in the relative silence of the hotel room from my position lying on my stomach on top of the bed covers, listening to my own soft, steady breaths.

And… some ragged breaths…?

I blink rapidly, bringing my sight into focus and emerging fully from the dreamland. Scrambling up into a seated position, I look wildly round for the source of the unusual sound.

And there, cross-legged on top of the covers and leaning against the wall, Sai’yo sits still with closed eyes… _and tear tracks on his cheeks_.

I gape. – Did New York affect him this much? I don’t think so, but….

Oh. The Song. The Song. The Song that I used to lull us to rest last night. It must be the Song – or rather, what I Sang. It evoked family love; _a mother’s love_ , especially.

And the both of us still _can’t_ get over our respective mothers, deep down. We established that already, several days ago.

The difference is, I’ve still got one living mother, though far far away, but his is most likely dead – probably in not quite a nice way, from what he implied – a long time ago.

What I Sang, it must feel like opening an old but still rather raw wound for him, instead of evoking a homely, peaceful, safe environment for his kel’no’reem. And he must have been helpless against it, unable to avoid or fight it, with how powerful the Song is in general and how deep it goes.

And, warrior or not, there are certain things that one is simply hopeless about, in more ways than three.

_Damn_. And I wished to just soothe our rattled nerves from the chaotic press of humanity down on the streets.

I _must_ fix this, _and_ apologise profusely.

So I scramble over to his bed and put a tentative hand on his knee. “Sai’yo? Sai’yo, wake up. I’m sorry. So so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please. I’m sorry.”

I suck a breath, bracing myself, when his eyes open.

But there is no condemnation in them, though lots of melancholy and old pain, plus a healthy amount of useless longing. Kind of what I might look, if someone asked me in an inebriated state, about me never having a mother figure that I could really remember, before I met my other, alien mum.

Still, I repeat my apologies, this time right to his face and into his eyes.

And, in reply to that, he gently cups my cheek with a trembling hand.

My breath hitches, and I instinctively lean into his touch.

The next breath lodges deep in my throat when he speaks at last, in a hoarse, wavering whisper, “You gave me a priceless gift. Thank you. For a while, I had my mother once more. It was the song that she always sang to me as we did our kel’no’reem together. A song that her mother sang to her, before they were lost to each other.”

My eyes burn.

“I think,” my voice is not that steady, either, “I heard the song from my mother, too.”

He opens his arms, then, and I fling myself into his embrace.

It really doesn’t help that I still feel like a thirteen-year-old, and most likely look like it. And I found that I still had tolerable living family when I was truly of that age.

A tolerable living family who died partly because of my fault when I was fifteen.

Well, Sai’yo is _my family_ , now. Maybe not in blood, but definitely in Song. And by all that is holy and precious, this family member shan’t die before he is _truly_ old, let alone because of me.

I vow it.


	40. An Investigation of Investations

Chapter notes: Ahem. Once more, artistic license, folks. - Rey

Museum of Ancient History, 18th May 2004

Monday morning is even more hectic than Sunday night in this city, it turns out. Full of pushing and mouthy pedestrians, swinging suitcases and bumping backpacks, also jammed and honking vehicles. Faced with that, it’s really, really, really a relief to finally reach an interesting-looking museum and duck into it. This early in the morning, it’s still empty of visitors, too.

“Are you going to follow Miss Langford’s suggestion to pursue a study of archeology, my lord?” Sai’yo inquires as we move away from the ticket booth, deeper into the museum.

“What did I tell you about calling me that?” I complain tiredly, while my eyes roam restlessly round the entrance area, noting all the signboards – “ **Egyptian** ,” “ **Maian** ,” “ **Aztec** ”….

“You said nothing after I pointed out that I am now your sworn servant, my lord,” he smiles a little.

I slap his upper arm huffingly and move off to the doorway marked “Egyptian.” – I am beginning to love that blogue, truly I am, but moments like this make me think back to how irritated Ron was always with his brothers and sister. I wonder if this is how it feels to have a sibling….

“Whoa.”

I freeze mid-step on the entrance of the “ **Egyptian** ” room. Across from the doorway, on the opposite wall, a large, round slab of stone hangs. It has two rings of symbols along its circumference, with some sort of carving of unfurled scroll on the centre.

And the thing has a very familiar name on it, written in _Goa’uld script_ , as Arga once showed me, although the other symbols are in another language.

It is _her name_.

Hermione’s “head-buddy.”

“The museum has Jaffa and Goa’uld weapons on display,” Sai’yo remarks from behind me, sounding intrigued and a little alarmed.

I jump at least a foot, hearing his voice suddenly behind me without approaching footfalls to herald it. “Be stealthier, would you?” I grumble sarcastically, whirling about.

He stares quizzically at me.

I sigh. “That was sarcasm talking, if you didn’t get it,” I grump, before stalking away towards the humongous stone coin. But, on the way, I do spy some odd staff-like things which are labelled “ **Staffs of Office** ” and quite a few other bits and bobs, lining the walls at either side of the said humongous stone coin.

“Could you copy the symbols for me to send to Mione, Sai’yo?” I ask on coming to a stop before the stone slab. “There’s Arga’s name on it.”

“It is… not a nice message, my lord,” he ventures out in reply. “I could… decipher… the gist of the writing. The message might upset both human and symbiote.”

“Oh?” I crane my neck up and frown at the name. “Do tell, then. We’ll hold on sending anything. Mione’s already upset enough for me.”

His voice sounds farther back and quite solemn when he reads, “ **Here lie Arga, Egeria and Pandora, traitors to the gods, in eternal torment. May they never find peace and life after death.** ”

I cringe. “Ow,” I mutter. “Thanks for the safe, buddy.”

“The symbiotes must have enraged the other Goa’uld very much with their actions,” he opines.

I nod. “I won’t ask, though, not till Arga tells me or we need the info.”

“The piece on the centre details three separate addresses for the Chappa’ai,” he observes.

I sigh and shake my head. “We can’t get the Chappa’ai away from… this place. And who knows what’s waiting in those addresses, anyway.”

“I believe that we are ready to protect you, my lord,” he points out.

“We?” I frown suspiciously, whirling round to stare sharply at him.

“The Jaffa that the First Prime sent you, including I,” he affirms.

My frown turns into a scowl. “No chance,” I say shortly, then move over to the line of knick-knacks to the left of the macabre rounded tablet. “Now, where are the weapons?”

“You could always ask the First Prime to send you weapons alongside more Jaffa, instead of taking the ones in this place,” he suggests. “He seems to trust you very much.”

I snort. “Maybe he did,” I acknowledge grudgingly. “There were crates. Didn’t open ’em. Didn’t mean to steal, anyway. Just have a looksie.”

“We could protect you better with weapons in hand,” he nudges. “I was armed, even in my last posting as guard of the engine room.”

“That boring, eh?” I tease him, skirting round his point.

“I was often ordered to check the engines by the Goa’uld in charge of the room,” he demurs. “It gave me much chance to study the engines in detail.”

I chuckle. “Your version of paradise?”

“Almost,” he agrees, as we come up to the weird staves on display. “These are staff weapons, my lord, not ‘staffs of office’. The one beside them are weapons that are wrapped around the hand when used, exclusively wielded by the Goa’uld, not ‘gold woven ornamental braces’.”

“Do you think there’ll be many more like these elsewhere?” I wonder worriedly.

“We could check, if you wish so.”

“Well, all right, then.”

**O-O-O-O**

It is… disturbing, to find that Goa’uld and Jaffa items of various kinds have been slipped among even the Maian, Incan and Aztec artefacts, though not among the Nordic ones.

Did the Goa’uld dominate ancient human cultures, then? Did they live side by side, more or less, or were the humans their slaves? – I wouldn’t ask these questions, normally, nor would I wonder about such subject… but, his half a year, I have been living with one of the Goa’uld, sharing one headspace with my school-time best friend. The horcrux living in the Black signet ring used to be a slave warrior mage who helped incite a human rebellion against their Goa’uld masters, too.

I _need_ to know if Arga – and Hermione, dragged into it willingly or unwillingly, as her host – will try to dominate the human population, especially with so many Jaffa around, equipped with whatever stored in the crates in the first trunk that might as well be weapons.

Damn. I’ve just remembered: The trunks have no specialised locks, and any magical person can free the Jaffa from their stasis.

Including Hermione.

Who is in the same body as Arga.

Arga could have her own personal army, by now, fully armed and certainly skilled, most likely quite experienced.

Well, I guess, if she means ill, I’ll just… do something to her. She’s still a snake, after all, and I killed a monstrous, humongous snake when I was a tiny, scrawny, ignorant, desperate twelve-year-old.

Still, to appease myself, since I would rather not return to my homeland just to confront her, I fish out my communication journal as Sai’yo and I take a respite at the little café attached to the museum, and write on the page that is dedicated to the “blended” madwoman that is half Hermione Granger and half Arga the Goa’uld:

**HARRY POTTER  
Mione, have you unearthed the Jaffa already or looked into the crates from the trunk?**

Aaand, just a moment after, as if she has been waiting for my message all day, Hermione writes back in an unusual chicken-scratch penmanship:

**HERMIONE GRANGER  
No. Waiting for you of course. Can I free them now? Or should I send the trunks to you? The elves of Black Lodge want to come and stay with you. I can send the trunks and more with them to you. Promise I shan’t pry about where you are! I think the crates just contain their personal items or something like that. Haven’t checked them. Haven’t checked whatever in the second and third trunks too. So busy with the fourth and all. Where are you? Did you sign the contract yet? I want to meet this old woman! She sounded smart and sharp. What did you talk about? The group is working on a lie detector that will work for mundanes and magicals alike. George is with Bill working on a tiny portable version of the Vanishing Cabinets for delivery of items among us all. Dennis Creevey came to Justin asking for job but Justin said he should ask you but wait till you come home so when are you back? Justin thought Dennis could actually keep you company in your trip to take photos and videos of you and Sai’yo. Neville and Luna and Zabini are off in their explorations and I am alone here just with Arga and the elves and the Residents. Susan is visiting other Pureblood ladies. Can I join you if you don’t want to go home soon?**

The message goes on and on and on.

I sigh, but smile nonetheless.

I can’t be quite sure if it’s really Hermione speaking or is Arga controlling her to gain my trust before stabbing me on the back later on, but this _does_ sound like my childhood best friend, and it’s ironically a balm to all the uncertainties and worries.

**HARRY POTTER  
Talk to you later, Mione. We are exploring museums right now. Bought you and the rest a few things. Good luck in your experiments. Stay safe.**

New York National Museum, 18th May 2004

Museum-hopping is a new experience that I can’t decide if I wish to repeat or not. I do experience so many ambiences and receive so much information, though, as Sai’yo steers me – in his subtle, sneaky, silent way – away from just focusing on what Goa’uld or Jaffa items that I might find among the remnants of previous human lives. And that translates into visiting diverse museums, not only those probably holding ancient artefacts.

“Well, it’s another humongous stone coin,” I remark as we enter the hall in the current museum that purportedly holds Ancient Egypt artefacts.

“I do not recognise the name written on the stone,” Sai’yo, walking in behind me, observes. “It most likely belongs to an underling, whether human or otherwise.”

“Or otherwise?” a male voice pipes in from farther into the hall, sounding curious and interested.

I wince. Sai’yo inhales sharply.

Damn. Neither of us thought to filter what we have been saying, in _all_ our visits. Damn. Damn. Damn. We put so much caution on Ms. Langford but then flaunted it ourselves!

“Can we ask you to forget it?” I rejoin hopefully.

“Nope. Too interesting.” A man ambles towards us from the far wall, brown-haired and blue-eyed and grinning… thankfully in a humorous, friendly way. His eyes, framed by spectacles, are laughing, but it doesn’t do much to temper the keen curiosity stabbing through.

I give a false cough. “What about… something? Something in exchange?”

“What?” His humorous grin fades into a wary smile. “Bribe? A beating? Nope. Nope. What about just telling me? Y’know, if you think ‘alien’, then you’re not the first.” He looks round to check that the hall is still empty, then continues in a lower but more excited tone, “I’ll be presenting my findings and extrapolations in a symposium next week. Don’t tell anybody yet, but my hypothesis is the great pyramids weren’t built by the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty. There’s no hieroglyphs there! The Ancient Egyptians loved their hieroglyphs and their decorations, but there’s nothing in those pyramids! They’re older than that dynasty, too, and there’s also writings in some other places nearby that didn’t look like hieroglyphs.”

I raise my eyebrows. – What a leap of deduction! And a leap of faith, too, if this man – not that much older than I am – dares present what he just said in what sounds like a very big, very official event.

“You visit the pyramids much?” I venture out.

“I _research_ them, personally, for a few years already.” His grin is back, now proud… and rather wolfish. “I’m an archeologist, and a linguist. Um, uh, Daniel Jackson. Ever heard of me?” He looks rather sheepish, now, and fidgetty. “Not that you should. I just thought you looked and sounded pretty into archeology, yourselves.” He thrusts out a hand, then, awkwardly.

I shake the offered hand, then motion Sai’yo to do the same. “Harry Black and Sai’yo. Pleasure to meet you,” I smile wryly.

“Pleasure, pleasure.” Daniel Jackson gets antsier, more excited. “So, wanna come to the symposium? I could get the both of you an invitation as my personal guests. I can show you my evidence, then! And we can discuss things in the presentation, or after that is okay too.” He looks so hopeful, like a Crup puppy seeking some playful attention.

“Umm.” I fidget, myself. “Umm, we don’t know where we’ll be, next week,” I hedge. “We’re just… sort of… floating by.”

“Float by the symposium, then!” he laughs, then peters out, perhaps seeing our indifferent, uncertain reaction.

“Oh, come on,” he whinges – partly hopeful, partly playful, mostly nervous – in his own reaction to our reaction. After a beat, still jittering, he beckons us to the hanging stone slab, chattering, “Not too close, not too close, but see, here’s some stone cover, there’s a pair of ‘em, always, and they depict the person entombed in a particular place. This one belongs to a pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty….”

My mind blanks out, soon enough. I return to the here-and-now only when my ears hear no more sound.

I blink.

“I bored you, didn’t I?” The man – Daniel Jackson – looks genuinely disappointed, even a little hurt. “Sorry. I just thought you’d like it, given your interest.”

I shake my head. “Sorry, Mister Jackson. I am… interested, but my interests are… more specific.” Then, because my stomach is up in a fervent protest presently, I add as an apology, “Would you like to join us for dinner? Might be some late dinner, but we haven’t eaten since… some time ago.” Most likely this morning, as we have been busy museum-hopping, but I shan’t tell him that, or he’ll natter about his knowledge again!

Well, but _that_ knowledge seems pretty thorough, nevertheless. I should recruit him, if I wish to find out more about the presence of the Goa’uld and their servants in ancient Earth civilisation without involving Arga and Black.

Damn. I’m acquiring a _third_ Hermione.


	41. Déjà Vu

Chapter notes: From here on, elements of _Marvel Cinematic Universe_ , especially _The Avengers_ and _Thor_ , begin to intrude, though not with the same pushed-back dating as the ones for _Stargate_. And speaking of _Stargate_ , I will only use select elements, and everything has been pushed back 10 years from canon. - Rey

Central Park, 19th May 2004

“Do you think we should go to Mister Jackson’s symposium, Sai’yo?” I ask quietly as Sai’yo and I manoeuvre our respective remote-control boats on the large pond, along with other players. “Well, I guess what I should ask is: Are you interested?”

We talked until quite late at night… or more properly rather early in the morning… with Daniel Jackson, after we explained about the contract and he signed it – with much less reluctance than Ms. Langford. It was firstly at the restaurant where we dined, then our hotel room. He even kipped on an extra bed there, seeing that he could barely open his eyes when I – _at long last_ – cut off our conversation, when the two of us yawned too much for coherent conversation – not Sai’yo, though, that “Superman.”

He doesn’t know that the United States keeps a Stargate around, as it is Ms. Langford’s story and part of her contract that we must keep, but he does know that there are means to go to other planets from one point to another… and it ignited his spirit to burn _higher than before_. So, now I am…. Well, the question is: Is he going to be even more convinced to tell this seemingly mad idea to the whole wide world, if Sai’yo and I attend his presentation? Humans naturally fear the unknown, after all, and so they might fear him should he go on with presenting his hypothesis, with his confidence renewed by all the things that we discussed, _the things that he is forbidden to speak of_.

He might lose his credibility in the community and for a job that he so loves because of that lack of further evidence, and it would be partly because of us.

It doesn’t mollify me any when Sai’yo throws the decision back to me, citing that he is just keeping me company as a good servant would.

I glare heatedly at him, for that. “So the ice cream just now was just ‘keeping me company’?” I point out sarcastically. “One would think you would enjoy it less if you’re just keeping me company.”

“Keeping someone company is not always a chore, my lord,” he smiles, unperturbed, his eyes warm.

I blush and look away, moved by the look. – Damn. Sometimes I rue his rising confidence in himself and the subsequent emergence of his dorment assertiveness.

As retaliation, I seek to capsize his remote-control boat, with increasing desire as he continues to evade me with previously unforeseen skill.

_Aaand_ we become a spectacle, as the other players cheer and laugh us on, also providing us some obstacles to go through with their own various mini water vehicles.

If all geniuses are gits like this, I truly dread working with Mr. Jackson after his presentation next week, as he promised us this morning….

**O-O-O-O**

“You like remote-control toys much?” I observe, amused, as Sai’yo now moves a mini jeep across the grass and fallen foliage nearby the shaded bench we’re seated on.

“You bought them, my lord,” he reminds me. “I simply make use of them, as you allow it.”

“Allow,” I echo, scoffing, nudging his ribs with an elbow. “You kept your eyes entirely on the thing when that boy had a test-drive at the toy shop! If that’s not some strong wish, I’d eat your jeep.”

“A jeep-shaped cake, perhaps? Otherwise it would be unpleasant and far too dangerous for you,” he ripostes.

I jostle the hand that holds the remote control, in retaliation.

Accordingly, the poor jeep zips up somebody’s all-too-good dress shoes, before flying off and rolling round, ending up on the lush grass with its futilely-moving wheels on the air.

“Oops, sorry,” I tell the owner of the shoes, who is a short man dressed in a sharp three-piece suit alien to a park like this.

He cocks his head, his brown eyes laughing but sharp with curiosity, just like Mr. Jackson’s yesterday at the museum.

“I can make it better,” is all he says.

I blink. “The jeep?” I clarify. “Well, maybe, but we bought this in a toy shop, just for fun. Never played it before.”

He picks the whirring jeep from the grass near his shoes, deactivates it manually, then looks thoroughly at it without any more word, as if unable to hear me… or not wanting to. And beside me, Sai’yo shifts, as if restless or displeased.

“I can make it better,” the stranger proclaims at length, repeating himself triumphantly, while thrusting the toy forward _but not returning it to either of us_.

I huff. “Yes, maybe,” I emphasise each word, “but that is ours, and we would like to resume playing.”

He joins us on the bench, in response, while still holding on to the jeep. “The remote, the remote, I need the remote, gi’m gi’m gi’m that,” he blurts out quickly, excitedly, flicking his fingers at the remote control still grasped loosely in Sai’yo’s hand.

He simply grabs the thing from Sai’yo when the latter, seeming to be quite flabbergasted, still keeps a hold of it.

I gape. But, oddly, _not_ because of how rude and blunt and forward this odd, unknown man is.

He just… feels… familiar, somehow, despite me knowing not even his name, now that we sit so close to each other.

And he chatters on and on and on, obliviously, rather like Mr. Jackson but about engineering details instead of archeological or linguistic ones, while fiddling with the remote control.

I exchange flummoxed looks with Sai’yo.

The strange paralysis only breaks when the stranger tries to pry open the casing of the remote control with his fingers.

“Hey! That’s ours!” I grab both the remote control and the mini jeep away, instinctively, then just as instinctively shrink away, closer to Sai’yo, suddenly remembering how _mad_ the Dursleys were when I grabbed something away from Dudley when we were small, regardless whether it was mine or his.

But, unlike the Dursleys, the man just… raises his eyebrows, looking rather nonplussed. And then, in the same manner, he blurts out, “Jees, kid, no need to act like a scaridy cat like that. I don’t bite, y’know.”

“You didn’t even tell me your name, or why you’re here,” I point out, rather more defensively than I would like to sound. Sai’yo has risen to his feet, meanwhile, with a hand on my shoulder which somehow feels like a message that says: Violence towards the stranger is near at hand.

The man looks even more nonplussed, for a moment. But then the look is slowly but surely replaced with one of utter glee.

“You don’t know me?” he checks, then, “Cool!” he crows, when I shake my head.

And, “Well, not as cool as I want. I’m famous, after all, but it’s awesome to introduce myself once in a while and look at people and see them clueless about _me_ and you mightn’t even know my name if I tell you so… I’m Tony Stark. Ever heard of me?” he jabbers, with barely three breaths – if even that many – in-between all the words.

Damn. We had to deal with Daniel Jackson yesterday, and it is Tony Stark today… whoever he is.

I shake my head, flabbergasted and dismayed.

He seizes my right hand and pumps it up and down energetically several times, in response.

And, judging from how tightly Sai’yo clenches my shoulder, however briefly, Tony Stark is only a hair’s breadth away from being pummelled by the usually mild-mannered Jaffa.

Damn. The situation is rapidly getting out of hand. And I thought we’d just spend a lazy day in the park today, to make up for the helter-skelter ride we had all day yesterday.

This man won’t leave till we get to the bottom of why he’s here, though, most likely; similar to Mr. Jackson. So, “Why are you here and watching us, Mister Stark?”

And… the man _pouts_ , complete with crossed arms and a petulant expression, and a flippant remark of “I do whatever I do, Mister Kiddy Somebody.”

Huh. An overgrown _spoiled_ child.

Almost like Sirius was, when he wasn’t being haunted or depressed.

Eh. I would take Daniel Jackson any time. His attitude was… less bratty.

But, judging from how Tony Stark is dragging me to my feet and trying to tow me away to… somewhere, the option of us being left alone by him isn’t on the figurative table, sadly.

Starbucks Café, 19th May 2004

Tony Stark turns heads wherever he walks. I guess, his claim of fame is not an empty boast, after all. And he does seem to both expect the attention and… somewhat revel in it.

This prevalent attention from total strangers makes me uneasy, though. It feels too much like the first days and weeks of my re-entrance to the British Wizarding World. And judging from how closely Sai’yo positions himself to me and watches out for me, he shares the feeling.

“Umm, can’t we pick a quieter place, at least?” I plead at length, as we seat ourselves round a table at one of the more crowded coffee-serving café that the not-so-sane famous somebody picked.

The man cocks his head and peers closely at me, in response. And then he asks in an unexpectedly rather serious tone, “Expecting trouble, kid?”

I begin to shake my head, then think better of it. “Yes,” I decide to say. “We are not good with crowds.”

“They’re just interested in me. The attention will pass.” He waves a hand; a clumsy attempt to soothe the nerves of his semi-willing guests, it seems.

I do shake my head, now. “You don’t really like it, yourself,” I point out, uncaring of how blunt the statement is, by this point. “Why pick a crowded place? We could have picked our hotel room or your house, or a quiet restaurant, or even a park like the one you found us at.”

Something passes across his eyes – surprise? You-caught-me? Irritation? Defensitveness? I don’t know. It’s a jumble of many things, probably all the aforesaid emotions, and it makes him suddenly pretty unreadable. He says nothing, at that, just standing up and moving over to the purchase counter.

Sai’yo and I exchange flummoxed looks again.

“Let’s just… order something, then we talk while walking or something,” I suggest, at length, while dazedly thinking through the options. Because, surprisingly, Tony Stark’s most recent reaction to my words makes me wish to know more of him; and, coupled with the increasing sense of familiarity, it makes me reluctant to skedaddle while the madman is distracted and away, unlike before.

We stand up just as the said madman returns with three steaming cups of coffee.

Puzzled, I look at the long queues before the counter, then at him and his purchases, then at the queues again. “You… just went there, didn’t you? So… how?” I stutter.

“Money talks,” he grins, though it looks more wolfish than mirthful to me.

I raise my eyebrows. Automatically accepting one of the cups from the tray, I readjust my view of him into: a not-so-sane, famous, possibly millionaire or even billionaire overgrown spoiled child of a man.

Not a good or appealing curriculum vitae, that.

And still, my heart urges me not to run far, far away from him so soon. Damn inexplicable familiarity.

Well, if Sai’yo and I cannot escape his presence for whatever reason, I had better try to dictate the terms of our… encounter, right now, though usually I’d rather not. So, “Shall we just walk? I’d like to see whatever we can see here.” It’s not really a lie, either, as it’s my first time – and Sai’yo’s, too – visiting a huge shopping mall which dwarves Harrods in size, though apparently not in completeness of items and services offered.

“All right, then,” he agrees easily, before steering me to the exit by way of an arm round my shoulders.

And, just so, something – a memory, a mental message from somebody nearby, or perhaps just my overactive imagination at play – surfaces in my tired mind, before drowning me completely in it.

“All right, then. Fine,” an androgynous voice agrees easily, sounding as if through a thin wall, with the same inflection and weight as the words that Tony Stark uttered, though I don’t know if I hear it in my mind or my ears. “Fine. Go cuddle with your dam and ignore me. But if so, do not seek me for a fun game when you are born and grown up little Laufeys. Last chance, little twin. Come greet your sire.”

And, as if moved by an invisible hand, I raise my own hand and tap softly against a membrane that seems to bar me from the owner of the voice.

And the voice crows, just like Tony Stark.

Huh.


	42. Updates

Disclaimer: The resort featured in this chapter is a fictitious place, so don’t try to find it in RL New York. Artistic license applies.

Warnings for: filler chapter, mild swearing

Chapter notes: The “Grady family” referenced in this chapter appears much more fully in my other fanfiction, _One Death Too Many_ of the _Permutations_ series – for those who are curious. Tony Stark’s age is the same as in canon, hence he is 8 years older than Harry, while Daniel Jackson is 6 years older. This chapter is also the start of linkage with another fandom – can you guess which? - Rey

Central Park Resort, 19th May 2004

“Whoa. You ought to have told me! This place is mine! I could’ve given you a discount or even a freebie. Now where do you stay? I hope it’s the bestest room? Oooh this is so embarrassing to me. Sorry, buddies.”

Mr. Stark – no, Tony – chatters and jitters on and on and on. It was a nice background noise to me, after the scare of my body and mind being hijacked by whatever it was, which he and Sai’yo noticed as just me suddenly freezing in place for a minute or so. It was nice, too, to be escorted at either side by the two of them. We felt… family-like.

Now we are no longer in a busy shopping centre, though, but instead a refined-but-naturalistic resort on the outskirts of Central Park where Sai’yo and I stayed in the previous night. The lobby is mostly empty, and the presence of Tony Stark – apparently the owner of this very place – in his bespoke suit and ownery manner acts as a potant magnet to all present eyes. _And_ , walking so close to him like we do, Sai’yo and I are instantly under scrutiny, like never before.

Now, I wish I proposed for us to go to his house instead of here, or at least not walking in glued to his side like this. It’s too late to back out, too, as he’s dragging me to the front desk by way of his arm slung familiarly round my neck, as though I were his son or little brother or close cousin or best friend or… something like that.

And then, just so, he gets our room info, and unilaterally changes it to the best suite in the hotel, citing that his friends shouldn’t stay in “squalor.”

Worse, we cannot reject it, whether now or later when he is gone, as it is a gift from the owner of the establishment and one who seeks to befriend us with apparently no ulterior motive.

And _worst_ , this means that, for the first time since we began this meandering trip, Sai’yo and I will sleep separately, whereas we have been enjoying better-quality rest since we firstly bunked together, for several reasons.

**O-O-O-O**

Tony chatters about engineering with Sai’yo in the background, after signing a similar contract to what Mr. Jackson signed earlier. Amusingly and pretty ironically, the man who often proclaims himself as playboy, philanthropic, genius billionaire is presently garbed in only his undergarments – a singlet and a pair of boxer shorts – and lounging like a teenage Dudley on the bed in one of the bedrooms, while Sai’yo is seated composedly in the armchair beside the bed.

Me? Well, I am lying on the couch in the suite’s common room, doing my House-work, which is currently necessitating me to keep in touch with my properties, people and friends. Not quite a _fun_ idea of fun, except for hearing back from people that I care for, but at least it’s better than listening to Tony jabber for hours about things that honestly don’t interest me.

It’s better than dwelling on whatever happened to me while we were in the shopping centre, too.

**O-O-O-O**

Another bunch of Muggle money is ready to be purchased, Clan Chief Ragnok says, although in a far less quantity than years prior, showing to me the sharply declining involvement of Muggleborn in the British Wizarding World at large. He also proposes that I unravel a set of fearsome and seemingly unbreakable wards round a pyramid for the goblins for a to-be-decided fee or favour, under “William Weasley’s” suggestion. – This could be good to build positive reputation between my collective estate and the goblins at large, not to mention adding some more funds and favours to my coffers, but talks of pyramids makes me wary and rather paranoid, by now.

House-elves in all the lands and properties ask for more work and people to care for. Tita, her brother and their cousin, especially, beg to go wherever “Master Harry” and “Master Sai’yo” go, while the elderly Kreacher fusses about the safety and comforts of “the last Black, Master Harry Black.” Some others choose the sneakier route of begging me to visit them and hear their proposal of converting the respective properties into house-elf-run commercial establishments such as hotels, daycare centres, clothing galleries and restaurants.

Teal’c admits that he and Fawkes have been ranging far and wide when picking up the needy Jaffa, not only in the main ranks of the armed forces under his leadership, and that by now there have been well-guarded rumours about Jaffa soldiers and families being saved from the displeasure of Apophis by a golden bird accompanied by a burst of etherial song. He also admits that Fawkes is thinking of thinning the ranks of the other Goa’uld, whether system lords or not, by ranging to the other side during altercations and picking up the doubters to be later briefed by Teal’c, aided by the growing legend of that pesky, gung-ho bird’s doings. During this all-too-rare chance to talk, he additionally confirms to me that many of the crates in the first trunk _and the subsequent ones_ hold weapons and armour that I and my friends can train to use for ourselves… and the Jaffa can use to protect _me_. – That damned sneaky, overprotective, fussy man.

Mr. Jackson – who exasperatedly demands that I just call him Daniel – continues to wheedle an agreement for me and Sai’yo to attend his symposium out of me. His bribe is now up to: “If you promise the both of you will attend and support me, and if you get us transportation there, I’ll show you all the physical evidence of what I have been talking about, starting from tomorrow till the day of the symposium. I promise you it won’t be boring!” And, damningly _for me_ , it is… tempting.

Ms. Fraiser – Janet, she says, too firmly to be disobeyed – wants me and Sai’yo to visit her in Colorado Springs, as I admited to her yesterday that I am on US soil now, floating round. She even dangles the possibility of me and my “guardian” attending a short course on avionics before my figurative nose. _And_ , bugger it all, this bribe is _also_ all too tempting to just brush aside.

Ms. Langford wonders politely when Sai’yo and I are going to visit, and if we are all right, roaming New York on our lonesome, and if we have visited a number of famous tourist sites. She also forwards me the mobile number for “Daniel Jackson, a young but brilliant man in the field of archeology and ancient languages.” Small world….

Neville natters about new and rare plants he’s finding while exploring with Luna, gallivanting all over Indonesia, and invites me and Sai’yo to join their expedition.

Luna natters about the animals she has found while keeping Neville company, and her frankly uncomfortable – _to me_ – musings on seducing the poor blogue.

Bill worries about his family members who still live in England – and worse, work in the Ministry – as the British Wizarding World seems to head to another blood-based conflict, egged on by the Daily Prophet and the Ministry, which started to rise after the deaths of Andy, Teddy and Hannah and the on-the-spot resignation of Neville, Susan and I from the Auror Corps. He admits that he is thinking of asking me to help him ward the land round the Burrow, as he knows that his parents are too stubborn to move away for their own safety, although they have been targeted before.

George lays out his plans for many inventions, and demands that Sai’yo return as soon as possible to help him, or at least be fitted with his own set of comm journal and mirror for easier brainstorming and consultation sessions. Sadly, his inventions are increasingly _less_ jocular or frivolous in nature, nowadays, though Weasleys’ Wizarding Wizzes were a bit of needed humour during the war.

Justin complains about the Muggleborn students of our new school being more accident-prone than the mixed group that we got at Hogwarts, given how enamoured of magical experiments they are. He _also_ demands that the calm, fatherly Sai’yo be trained as a nurse to help him out, _plus_ one more doctor-healer as extra hand and knowledge, the curriculum vitae of whom he forwarded to me in the previous exchange of messages. _And_ he demands that I go home for his engagement party with Milla next month, too.

Hermione alarmingly muses about breaking into the Department of Mysteries _again_ , to see if the Unspeakables have done more horrors to anybody else or gathered more items related to Arga and her people, citing that the both of them are _bored_. – That damned gung-ho witch….

Susan natters about all the political manoeuvrings that she has been up to with her Pureblood-heir circles, to both safeguard us from persecutions from that front and try to salvage the dying community as a whole. She is looking to preserve some of the Wizarding customs, too, by requesting that a Wizarding Studies subject be added to our school, which curriculum she has secretly prepared and now forwarded to me. _And_ she has also been feeling out potential students who are _not_ Muggleborn but open-minded and circumspect enough to study in a secure Muggleborn environment like our school. All, sensitive complications that I can do _without_ thinking, right now, as this trip is _supposed_ to be my _holiday_.

Chilla timidly wonders on behalf of her people about when I will return and be among the Residents once more, and on behalf of herself about when we will hold another “movie night.” On another note, delivered in a painstakingly detailed and factual argument that suggests long, careful thought, she proposes that, if possible, the Jaffa are integrated into their community, as it has been well established in a safe environment. Sigh….

The Grady family, who lives in and takes care of the Potters’ townhouse in Washington DC, asks _yet again_ when I would favour them with a visit. The eight-year-old son, Mitchell Grady, even uses his childlike charms to cutely and sincerely beg to be a tour leader for _when_ I come there. And in the meantime, his parents wonder – again, not for the first time – if I would like to retake the expedition that the late Charlus and Dorea Potter often went in in hope of recovering the bodies of their “wartime friends.” More sigh….

Aaand, Zabini puts out a worrying one-liner of “ **No more need to study so hard about potions. I am already studying it** ”. _Damn that sod_.

I admit, after all that, I spent the time napping on the couch, with the comm journals, notebooks and case of comm mirrors and phone as my pillows for my head and arms.

And now Tony Stark the overgrown spoiled brat is waking me up, in _not_ a pleasant manner, by trickling ice water down my temple.

I drench him in gallons of conjured ice water, in retaliation.

His yelp of shock and indignation is like music to my ears.

**O-O-O-O**

“Oh come on. Sais told me you’ve got no definite destination in mind. You can keep me company observing that dino island Hammond got. Otherwise I won’t go and then I’ll be in trouble with Pepper and Obi.” Tony collars me with his arm, practically cuddling me sidewise on the couch, wheedling all the while.

“Sais?” – I try to wriggle free without magic, to no avail. For a short, seemingly so-so man, the prat’s so strong!

“That one.” The said prat points a thumb at Sai’yo, who has been watching us carefully from one of the two armchairs positioned across the couch, probably ready to pounce in should he judge that I am truly in trouble. – Embarrassing. I’m not a “maiden in distress”!

I relax a little, laughing. “Sais,” I repeat, bemusedly. “What a nickname. You should ask if he’s okay with it first, though.” Then I jab an elbow into his side, channeling a Tickling Hex through it at the same time, and flee to the empty armchair beside Sai’yo when he yelps and lets me go.

“Things changed,” I tell him when my laughter has subsided, before he can spew out more words. “We’ll be busy doing things this week till the next one, and next month we need to return home, at least briefly.”

“Well, I’m rescheduling the visit to the island for some time next week or the week after, then,” is his flippant response, before he bounces up from the couch and prances away to where he has discarded his outer garments and shoes, probably for his mobile phone. “I’ll chase you down to good ol’ England if you chicken out of it!”

I sputter out my protest, but he is already dialing up a number and talking to someone, ordering… her?… to, as he said, reschedule his appointments so that he _and entourage_ can go visit “Las Cinco Muertes” at the end of next week.

Oh, damn.


	43. Visits

Langford Residence, 20th May 2004

“…and a friend wants me to go to Colorado Springs to visit her, so we are suddenly on a schedule, now. But she promised us some short course on avionics! So… well, that’s all.”

I clear my throat, having talked for so long, after Ms. Langford politely but insistently asked what Sai’yo and I have been up to in New York thus far.

The kindly old woman beams at us. “I’m glad for you! I’m sure you would consider that course a holiday after what you’ve found in the museums.”

I grimace, agreeing. “Can’t stop thinking about it. But, well, we’re still here till this afternoon, at least, so, umm, would you like to go out for a lunch with us?”

“A date, Mister Potter? Am I not too old for you?” she grins and winks at me. I blush hot and stutter out a denial, stopping only when she laughs merrily and leans forward – across the low, small tea table – to pat my hand.

“It’s a date,” she affirms smilingly, then switches her attention to Sai’yo and teases him in turn, “Making big friends, now, eh, Sai’yo? With Mr. Stark’s help, soon you will be somewhere high in one of his companies, or owner of your own company. I might even be tempted to join as advisor, if you owned an exploratory company.”

The addressee looks confused.

A moment after, Ms. Langford and I know why, as the befuddled Jaffa repeats slowly and wonders aloud, “Big friends? But Tony Stark is a short man.”

I choke and sputter on the tea I’ve just sipped.

Ms. Langford giggles.

“A figure of speech, my good man, just an expression in words.” Her eyes twinkle mirthfully, making her look decades younger. “Do you not have it, in your culture?”

“Ah.” Sai’yo smiles awkwardly, and I burst into a mixture of coughs and giggles.

“That madman is certainly strong, though, if not big,” I pipe in, once I’ve got myself under control. “He pinned me!”

Ms. Langford turns more serious, just so. All traces of mirth leave me, accordingly, and Sai’yo, seated beside me on the couch across from her, straightens up.

“That so-called madman is strong in many arenas,” she warns. “You are playing with fire, my dears, and fire can burn or warm you.”

“Warm, I hope.” I acknowledge her with an uncertain nod and smile. “His bluster and outgoingness certainly look like they’re defending something else, the longer we talked.”

She nods to my assessment, then waves a hand dismissively. “Enough about him. That man likes to hear his own voice. We don’t need to add to it.” She raises an eyebrow on my sniggering response to that statement, but then chooses to go on instead of inquiring about it, “Now, what do you want to do, _yourselves_? Life is too precious to be spent just catering to somebody else’s whims, you know, even mine.” She smiles self-depricatingly. “I admit, I was selfish to remind you again that I live here. But it is just so exciting to meet the two of you, and I wish dearly to know more about you, just to talk, as friends. In my age, you need something new to keep yourself young, you know, and new things are hard to come by.”

I shrug. “Sai’yo?”

Well, my pride allows me to chicken out before an old lady, apparently.

McDonald’s Restaurant, 20th May 2004

“Hello, hello, hello, hello,” Daniel chirps when he spots me and Sai’yo coming in through the front door of the restaurant. He seems to have been idly playing with his meal before we came, but now he rushes to us and pumps my hand a few times before treating Sai’yo with the same enthusiastic welcome.

“How early did you come and wait here?” I muse aloud, amused, as he ushers us to his table on the far corner. “And… is there a reason you picked a fastfood restaurant? Not typical for a scientist, is it?”

“Oh, just, I got to be accustomed to unhealthy meals when preparing for something, including this symposium,” he grins, as he retakes his seat and resumes playing with his potato chips. “Got no time to prepare a meal, or to wait for it. Actually I just got things delivered to my apartment when I’m in the middle of something, and this is the first time I got to go out after preparing for this one. Nice!”

“And you pick a fastfood restaurant for that?” I query while snatching a chip from his paper container. “I thought you’d choose something… classier.”

“Buy your own!” he pouts at me, snatching his container of chips away. “And no complaint about the venue, please. You seem to like it very much, if the thievery is to go by.”

“Well, I got no chance to enjoy it when I was little,” I grin unrepentently at him, while snatching yet another chip with some subtle help from my magic.

He kicks me under the table for that, but misses, and nearly topples himself out of his chair – and the table with him – when his foot got tangled on the chicken-foot-like support of the table.

I help right him up with the same tendral of magic that snatched his chip, then, sniggering, stand up to order my own meal. Sai’yo follows behind, as usual… which makes me think that I will have to train him about Earth 101 soon.

That’s for later, though. For now, I’d like to enjoy a simple meal with friends, like what Sai’yo and I had with our early lunch with Ms. Langford, a few hours ago.

Oh, and note to self: I must _also_ ask Daniel why he’s well-packed as if moving homes like that, with two huge suitcases arranged by his chair.

US Air Force Academy Hospital, 20th May 2004

“You didn’t warn me enough,” Daniel complains weakly, looking rather green, at the end of our Portkey ride using his empty container of chips.

“You’ll get used to it, or we shan’t make it to Egypt,” I warn blithely. Privately, though, I agree with him: Some magical travelling means may be near-instantaneous, but they make it up with horrible sensations in transit.

I offer him a bottle of water after he has taken a few deep breaths, after doing the same to Sai’yo.

“Why are you not affected by that?” he points out after gulping several deep swallows of water, still sulking. “Is that ‘cause of your ‘thing’?”

“Nope,” I shake my head, while uncapping my own bottle of water. “Just got used to it, whether I like it or not, after years using that.”

“Ha!” he crows. “You don’t like it too, do you? Now, why didn’t we take a carpet ride or something? I assume it’s not a myth and easier on the stomach than this? And… we don’t need to go too high?”

I shrug. “Never tried it,” I admit. “It’s banned, where I came from. Maybe we’ll get to try it, once we’re in Egypt. But for now… well, I want to surprise a friend with a visit. Feel free to come with us or wait somewhere. We mightn’t be long. She’s not expecting us, after all.”

He raises a suggestive eyebrow. “A friend? Or a _friend_?” he grins, looking like seeking some payback via teasing.

So I maturely stick my tongue out at him, before confirming that we’re meeting a _friend_ , not a _girlfriend_.

While looking round for a secluded spot to cancel the Disillusionment Charm I put on the three of us before taking the Portkey, I explain further that the friend is Janet Fraiser, someone that we met near the start of our trip, a doctor for the US Air Force, hence our presence here: near the entrance gate to the US Air Force Academy and the hospital inside the complex.

“Well, you got me curious.” His grin turns eviler. “Now I want to see that special friend of yours for myself. You came this far just to surprise her for a bit, after all.”

I give him a mild Stinging Hex on the tip of his nose, just for that.

**O-O-O-O**

“Harry! You didn’t tell me you’d come!” Janet squawks when her next appointment turns out to be me and Sai’yo and Daniel, instead of yet another patient.

I grin sheepishly at her. “Surprise!” I offer weakly.

She rushes round her desk and punches my shoulder, before enveloping me in a tight embrace. “You brat,” she murmurs into my ever-messy hair. “Now you’re spoiling my own surprise. We’re not ready yet!”

“We?” I inquire, as she moves over to give Sai’yo the same hug.

“No mind about that.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Now, who do we have here? A new friend? Or a new somebody in the group?” She releases Sai’yo and moves over to Daniel, thrusting out a hand for a handshake. “Janet Fraiser. You?”

“Uh, ah, I, well, Jackson, Daniel Jackson,” Daniel stutters, while automatically reaching out a hand. He looks taken aback in the face of Janet’s brusque manner.

I grin evilly at him behind her back. He rolls his eyes at me.

“A _friend_ ,” I tell her, but with my eyes still on Daniel, who again rolls his eyes at me.

“There’s a story behind that,” Janet laughs, but doesn’t pursue the matter further. “Sit, sit, the lot of you, I’ve got maybe five minutes for you, but there’ll be more time next week.”

“You wound me. After I came this far,” I moan theatrically, completing the act with plonking myself into the chair before her desk with a huff.

She raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. “Do that again and I’ll tell Hermione where you are,” she threatens. “She’s been asking after you, you know.”

I wince. “Oh, no, please. All right, all right, I’ll be good, Doctor Fraiser!”

She harrumphs, but drags her swivel chair out from behind her desk to sit among us, anyway.

“Now, tell me what you’ve been up to since Dover.”

Kairo, 20th May 2004

“Why all the secrecy, Harry? Your folk a cult or what? Not that I like you less because of that. I’m just… curious.”

I give a now-robed Daniel an apologetic look, as we continue our way past the house that Bill, George and seven other Gringotts employees use as base camp for their down time. “Sorry, Daniel,” I tell him, most sincerely. “That one’s not on the contract, and I can’t tweak the contract to include that. There’s… rules, and I was already skating on the line when I directed the Portkey to the house. I just don’t know other places safe enough for a Portkey. We must take sandstorms into consideration, after all, so it can’t be outside like the last one. And the folk staying in the house would be much more on guard if we’re Disillusioned when we dropped by. Can’t chance some friendly fire after an international Portkey, you know.”

He shrugs and sighs. “You sound awefully like the military and their ‘classified’ thing,” he remarks, then falls silent, looking round avidly at the magical enclave we’re still in.

I take the chance to usher him along the street to the entrance, which is simply a doorway hard-illusioned as a sturdy brick wall, with other defensive and distractive wards in place, keyed to melt away only to the touch of a magical person. Sai’yo, also clad in one of my spare robes with liberal use of Engorgement Charm, pads along silently behind us as is his wont, and I keep half my attention on him, as he is not equipped to defend himself by magic, just like Daniel.

I can only hope that we’ll reach the first destination without any hassle from the locals, whether magical or mundane. Being here alone is already hard. I didn’t know that Daniel would reveal that our first destination would be a museum in _Kairo_ – where I and my friends farewelled Teal’c! All this only reminds me that Teal’c is far away out there, risking his life not only for his fellow Jaffa but also for an uncaring, power-hungry, blood-thirsty so-called god.

Valley of the Kings, 21st May 2004

“Huh. Well, I guess I’m taking up the offer,” I mutter unhappily as my eyes roam the pyramids squatting on the valley down below. The Muggle Repellent ward round this section of the valley is still active, but the Magic Repellent one is not, and the goblins did send a map of the location alongside their offer of a joint venture, yesterday….

“Uh, what, Harry?” Daniel, who has been looking at another section, inquires absent-mindedly.

“I got a job to do round here,” I inform him reluctantly. “I thought I still had time, though. I didn’t want to work much while on holiday. Wish I knew you were going to bring us here. The employer would be mad if I went away without even trying to see what I could do, now that I’m here.” It’s a second out of two destinations that makes me uncomfortable…. I can only hope that his third destination is better on my mental wellbeing.

But for now…, “Let’s see what you got, then I got to visit my workplace, after sending a message to my friend.” Gringotts wants me to work with Bill, after all. And, in any case, Bill would be _mad_ if I tried to even analyse the warding round the pyramid Gringotts wants me to crack without his supervision and protection.

“But you said you’re not an archeologist.” Daniel narrows his eyes at me accusingly, with a sliver of real hurt lurking deep in his eyes.

I shake my head. “Not an archeological job,” I correct him. More like the precursor to tomb-raiding, but he’d flay me alive if he knew about _that_ , I bet, so I just say, “I just need to… open up a specific pyramid, and other people will explore it. They need my special ability to open it successfully and safely. Hence the job.”

The older man looks round pointedly, sarcastically. “Those are even just _rocks_ , Harry. The pyramids are _there_.” He motions at the section that he scrutinised earlier.

“It needs my ability to open, so, naturally, my ability to see, too,” I remind him. “Now, if you behave, you can see what I see as well. Otherwise, I’ll just give this to Sai’yo.” I grin, fishing out and dangling a rune leather necklace I’ve prepared in front of me.

As predicted, the necklace got snatched up in a second.

But, not as predicted, though I ought to have predicted it given to whom I am speaking, Daniel doesn’t immediately put it on. He scrutinises and marvels at the series of small runes encircling the circumference of the palm-sized stone pendant, instead.

And then he chatters about it, noting the mixture of various languages that make up the said runes, also how _new_ the pendant feels.

Go figure….

I just roll my eyes at him, and use the chance to give a second necklace to a surprised Sai’yo.

“Didn’t think I’d give you one?” I frown at the Jaffa, making myself sound offended… which is an easy feat, presently, as I do feel it to some degree. “You’re my friend _too_ , you know. – Now, I need a little of your blood on the centre of the pendant. If you’d let me, I could draw it for you.”

Sai’yo doesn’t answer, but he does raise his other hand and offer it to me. He regards me deeply, quietly, unblinkingly, and doesn’t stir even when I prick the tip of his pointer finger with a tendral of magic.

“What?” I mutter when the silent, unreadable look grows too long to bear. “Something on my face?”

Well, unexpectedly, he answers, in a murmur just on this side of audible: “Something that I saw in only very few individuals, before, most of whom were my family members.”

I inhale the sun-heated, dry, sandy air deeply, on that pronouncement.

Family.

Well, why not?

“Well, I’ve got quite a few slots open on the family part. Would you like to fill one?”


	44. Findings, Part 1

Valley of the Kings, 21st May 2004

“Bill, aren’t you going to do anything?”

“Do what, Harry?”

“Like, teach me how to detect the wards and what are still active here?”

“Nope. You can do it yourself very well, I bet.”

“Should I remind you again that I haven’t studied much about warding and enchantments? Damn it, Bill, the most that I’ve ever done is moulding present spells together or into something!”

“Did Flidwick or McGonagall ever teach you that doing magic needs your will and concentration and visualisation? Imagination, too, on the side.”

“What does it get to do with moulding?”

“A lot, actually, I bet. Your ability is still magic, Harry; maybe even a wilder, more powerful, more basic form of magic. You never need your wand to do it, do you? – Ha. Now just concentrate, and _gently_ will your magic to skim over the wards, _after_ we test the perimeters, layer by layer. Use physical things first, like rocks, then representatives of spell groups – of course, the lightest and gentlest the first. Look at the results not only with your eyes, but with your magic.”

“Can’t you just put it all in a memory crystal? I got a few blank ones, here.”

“Harry….”

“It’s a good solution! We won’t get things done before the month is out, if I keep experimenting, and we’ve got places to be all this month. I want a tour of the magical pyramids, too. Daniel brought me to a completely mundane pyramid this morning. Or maybe the magics have been stripped from it decades or centuries ago….”

“Harry, _no_ , you can’t follow my way. My way is the mundane way, and Gringotts wants the unusual way.”

“Well, yes, I’ve found out that I’m a freak, even among the magicals.”

“Harry… nobody says you’re a freak, you know.”

“The Dursleys–.”

“Do I look like your relatives to you in any way, shape or form?”

“Um, no, but–.”

“Don’t dawdle, Harry. I can’t leave your friend for too long. I must see you do your thing, first, in case of emergencies, then I’ll keep him company.”

Bill gives the distant figures of Daniel and Sai’yo a wary glance, then focuses an exasperated glare on me. “He’s nosier than Dad about Muggles and Hermione about everything, and less able to defend himself in a magical environment. What did you think anyway, bringing a pair of Muggles into this?”

I shrug. “Sai’yo’s family, by now, and Daniel…. Well, suffice to say, he probably can help us with Teal’c-related matters.” I flick a meaningful glance at the two aforementioned blokes, who are studying the foot of the neighbouring, non-magical, fully visible pyramid, presently. “’Sides, he’s like me, no family and few friends.” Daniel said as much even during our first time together, in-between chattering about his passions.

Bill sighs, and briefly embraces me sidewise by way of an arm round my neck.

“Just don’t let anybody in the magical community know, you reckless man,” he warns me, though without a bite in his fond tone. “Don’t invite trouble when you’ve got enough already. – Now, let’s begin, and if you say one more word to stall any longer, I’ll Portkey you straight back to Hermione.”

**O-O-O-O**

Bill moves away to join Sai’yo and Daniel, now that we have established the fact that:  
a) the circumference of the warding is not unnecessarily larger than the pyramid itself;  
b) the warding is more defensive than offensive in nature, not so creative at that;  
c) there is only one magical signature recorded for the warding, which is somehow familiar to me;  
d) the wards have been done in different times but planned meticulously to trigger each other; and  
e) the said wards are unbreakable _also_ because they are powerful, fed by multiple self-sacrifices.

I bite my lip and fidget with my own fingers and the two rings set there. – What should I do, now? Do I try peeling the warding away? But the effect will only be temporary, as the protection will snap back as soon as my concentration and magic are lifted from it, just like when one is forcing a collapsing structure up and away from themself…. Or dare I use the Song to try to break the protection altogether? But I know even _less_ about it than the so-called Potter-family specialty!

I glance to the side for the umpteenth time, noticing that Daniel is presently grilling Bill in… Egyptology, probably.

And Sai’yo, standing forgotten beside the two of them, happens to be glancing at me.

An unspoken question enters his gaze, as he sweeps the said gaze from me to his customary place behind and to the side of me. “May I join you?” it seems to say.

I shrug. Daniel and Bill won’t miss him much, and, in any case, it may be a prudent idea to separate the Muggle-sitting duty between Bill and I. Sai’yo can help watch my back while I’m trying to think up a way inside, too.

If only I wouldn’t think twice on just tearing the wards open and obliterating them…. I just…. The self-sacrifices felt _clean_ , somehow, fully willing, and relatively benign, and I loathe to spit on that by ruining what all those ancient people gave their lives for. There’s no telling, too, what’ll happen to the thing or things protected inside, should I just send the whole protection into the ether. It’d be even more of an insult if we got those protectee(s) damaged or broken, as well.

“Hey, you said the Egyptian pyramids are like the Goa’uld biggest spaceships,” I address my new official family member once he has joined me. “Wanna see what about this one? The first layer of the protection creates an illusion that not even the magicals can just swipe away with the wave of a wand. I can peel it off, though, for a while, like when you open a curtain. The pyramid mightn’t be a pyramid, after all.”

His affirmative sees me raising both bare hands and concentrating mentally and magically on the layer that I mentioned, which is the subtlest of the whole protection but also the most powerful.

Somebody – or a whole lot of somebodies, maybe – wanted to hide something pretty desperately, it seems.

And, judging from the sharp intake of breath Sai’yo lets out when I manage to make a smallish opening on the thing, level with my torso, my vague guess is correct.

Not to mention, I myself see that, instead of the weathered sandstone bricks of the usual pyramids, the wall revealed by the opening is more like the outer hull of an aeroplane. Just… shinier, and sturdier-seeming.

“Want me to make it bigger?” I offer, my voice strained alongside my concentration. The illusion _really_ doesn’t like being lifted off.

“Unless you wish us to come in, my lord, this is enough,” Sai’yo replies, rather dazedly, after a beat. “And you might wish to release your hold on the opening. It seems to tax you greatly.”

I comply with his request, admitting that, yes, the illusion _really_ doesn’t want to go away. “But what was it?” I implore, next. “You were shocked.”

“It… could be a great advantage for you, my lord, should it be operational and unoccupied,” is the Jaffa’s very _un_ composed response, and my eyes widen at both the emotions he so rarely shows and the gist of his words.

“You mean… it’s a _spaceship_?” I hiss, after sucking in my own sharp inhale of breath.

“A ha’tak, yes, my lord, a grounded one without a landing pad,” he nods, still looking rather shaken. “An intact one from the outside, and from the little that I saw.”

My mind churns. – Why was the spaceship grounded not on its landing pad? Who did the grounding? Why? Why is it intact from the outside, if it’s a forceful grounding? Is this an ancient trap? But for what or whom? The wards didn’t – _don’t_ – feel like a trap, but a good trap is unnoticeable, isn’t it? Who warded this thing, anyway? Why? Were they the same as the ones grounding the ship? Was the ship so valuable that they protected it literally with their lives? What’s inside of it? Can I risk trying to find out? There’s some space between the first layer and the second one of the warding arrays….

I rub my rings nervously as my thoughts continue to whirl round and round and round.

And then Sai’yo suddenly yanks me to the side, before deliberately positioning himself in front of me.

“Hey! Sai’yo?” I squawk, protesting, but in a slurred voice, as my legs threaten to buckle under me, and dizziness and weakness swamp me. I grab a tight hold on the back of his T-shirt, then switch it to his shoulders.

The one who responds isn’t the paranoid Jaffa, though, but….

That deep, booming, rumbling laughter….

“Black?”

Bill and Daniel are running towards us, judging from the sound of shushing sand that seems to be created by hasty footfalls on the sandy ground, but my concentration is riveted on the owner of the previous sound.

“Black? Why are you here?”

I can’t really see beyond Sai’yo’s shoulder, so I lever myself on my tiptoes to give myself a better view.

Yep. Black: huge and nearly naked frame, black skin glistening under the beating afternoon sun, rough features now stretched in a sharp, approving grin, watchful black eyes now trained half on me and half on Sai’yo.

“Hello again, child,” comes the greeting, with a trace of gentle rebuke in it. “Congratulations, you have found what _else_ I helped do in my lifetime. And, apparently, now you have both a new bodyguard and family member all in one.” He raises an eyebrow. “Why did you not bring him with you to the island yet? You liked being there, last time.”

Well, yes. But I haven’t _liked_ being anywhere much in particular, lately, have I? Except for the company….

Oh. Oh oh oh.

When was the last time I visited Black or communicated with him? No wonder he rebuked me!

But still, why is he _in person_ , here, now? He sapped my strength and concentration just as I needed it for a very important undertaking!

I complain to him, just so, even as I return the ball of my feet back to the reasonably firm earth and lean my forehead against the reassuring back of the newest Potter-Black, all without releasing my death-grip on his shoulders.

And Black says to that: “I noticed where you were, and judged that my corporeal state would help you and your companions more than if I stayed incorporeal.”

I give him just a snort and a brief, vague wave at the direction of the illusioned _spaceship_ , in response.

But then, as he approaches the first layer of the warding, his words register fully in my mind, including the knowledge that _he is a magical construct, himself_.

“Wait!” I squawk, before he can touch the layer. “Wait! Wait! Wait!”

I move away from Sai’yo, just as Bill and Daniel arrive, and yank Black by his nearest arm, away from the wards. “Wait! What’ll happen to you when you touch that ward? You’re a construct, yourself!”

The huge man regards me deeply, silently, then proclaims in an implacable tone with his eyes never leaving mine, “I know you wish to preserve the wards as they are, and I greatly appreciate the consideration, child. However, you cannot do so without me, however skillful you are with your special abilities. The arrays were set to be destroyed along with everything they protect without the presence of the key, and _I_ am the key, Harry. The people held in this place hold personal value and importance to me. Others sacrificed themselves for them, so did I.”

“So will you,” I finish for him, with bitterness pooling in my mouth.

He kisses my forehead on the damned scar, in response.

“No,” I whisper, then, much louder, “No!”

“I am not going to abandon you, child. I just will no longer be corporeal, or intrude into your affairs. I will just be a presence in the wards, here and in other places where Black-blood wards are set. You can even invite me to dwell in new wards that you set up, if we arrange it now.”

I respond to that _nonsense_ by slapping the pre-prepared Portkey back to Bill’s base camp – a large, battered frisbee – into his hand, then _Achioing_ Sai’yo, Daniel and Bill to join us.

I will just tell Gringotts to find another project for me to do.


	45. Findings, Part 2

Kairo Base Camp of Gringotts Curse-Breakers, 21st May 2004

I feel… lost, and dumbfounded, which is pretty much the same at present.

Bill immediately spirited Sai’yo away, quite under protest and struggle, to see George in another room, right after we touched down on the floor of his conveniently empty base camp. Black set up Daniel with a rune puzzle in another room and locked the latter in it, with the last rune in the array that, if puzzled out and hit by a sentient regardless of magic or humanness, would unlock the door.

Afterwards, with the ambient noise of Daniel pounding the door and trying the handle and pounding the door again, demanding us to let him out, and Sai’yo doing the same in the neighbouring room, Black and I just… look at each other. For what feels like an eternity. Without speaking. Without moving. Although I was bursting with angry and hurt accusations and wild plans even while the possible collateral damages were spirited away – or spirited himself away, in Bill’s case.

And then, as two small, invisible hands gently grasp my own respective hands and a pair of equally small arms wind themselves round my legs from behind, and the Black family magic settles like a soft blanket over the four of us right after, something finally stirs in me, and I manage to let out, “Why?”

Black respects me enough by not denying that he has omitted something from his earlier reasoning; something that I subconsciously noticed but did not internalise until we arrived here; something that the Black family magic – _Black’s own escence_ , essentially – notified me in a sense. In a soft voice, he admits that his corporeal being has been changed, all so subtly, given my not-so-human escence that powers his incarnation each time; something that he did not experience before as the original non-human part infusing their own blood to the line was not the then Lord Black. His feelings, desires and reactions are now just as human as when he was actually alive, _including_ a desire to be fully human.

And he fears that, with that desire propelling him, he would seek to drain me or possess me, to achieve it.

“Hear me, child,” he continues before I can interject whether in word or gesture. “With me dispersed into the wards, the influence of your escence in me would also disperse, and with that I hope I can manage myself better. I will be able to rematerialise after you have passed the lordship to one of your children, and you know that passing the lordship does not mean you are on the cusp of death, if you so choose it. Until then, I shall exist only in the wards… including those that you might draw on your person, which naturally follow you _everywhere_.”

“Bribing me won’t work,” I argue for the sake of arguing, unwilling to admit that this explanation has mollified me some.

“Arguing for the sake of argument is terribly childish, too, my little lord, and it does not suit a person _of any age_ to indulge in it for too long, irrespective of any reason. Be a child as you wish, when the situation is safe enough for you to revel in it, but never be childish.” He cups my cheek, then steps forward to gather me into a warm embrace that lingers comfortably long. “I remain your family and present in your life, Harry, whether I am corporeal or not. With me releasing the ha’tak into your care, you would even gain more family members and another secure home to live in as you choose, also a secure means of transportation for your whole family if need be.”

“Damn you, Black,” I whisper, as my body erupts in shakes, given that I fail to manage my emotions internally. “Damn you.” I put my arms round him and clutch him close, digging my fingers into his skin and flesh – _very, very, very tangible_ skin and flesh – as my breaths grow ragged. “Damn you.” Because I cannot avoid the logic, the advantages, the _plea_ in his voice. “Tomorrow. Not today. Don’t push me. Don’t push. Just… be here. Until tomorrow.” Because tomorrow he will be gone, never like this again, even if I pour most of my lifeforce into him to materialise him after I have passed the damned lordship to somebody else – _anybody else_.

My tears pour down, at last, when he whispers into my mop of hair, “Your will be done, my little lord.”

**O-O-O-O**

There is another reason why I would like to postpone uncovering the spaceship until tomorrow… or maybe after – well, _preferably_ after, actually.

And the reason is before me, now, laid on the marble-top tea table, surrounded by not only myself and Black but also the three Black Lodge house-elves who came here as summoned by my distress, an intrigued Bill, an exasperated George, an astonishingly hard and prickly Sai’yo, a bemused and put-out Daniel plus his ever-present writing kit, and Hermione-Arga who took off here the moment I told her I am in Kairo… and promptly hugged _Black_ to the point of suffocation.

The reason looks so simple, uncomplicated: just three matchbox-shaped blocks of wood, each larger than the neighbouring one. But I have been avoiding this particular reason for months and months.

Only, now, I cannot avoid dealing with it any longer, as Black hinted in his words that, soon enough, I will acquire _more_ Jaffa in my figurative payroll.

These Jaffa that Teal’c sent me deserve to get to breathe the free air first, as they came first, and didn’t get that privelege only because _I_ procrastinated.

Luna was right. I neglected these people, and they might not look charitably on it.

And Sai’yo could be in danger, because of that. Especially after I so impulsively offered him a place in my family.

I give Sai’yo – who is seated across from me, bracketed by Bill and George – a last glance, then pick up the smallest block of wood, from which he came.

“Thanks for being here, and thanks for offering to help me with the other Jaffa,” I begin, at length. “Please don’t undo the stasis, or read the notes if there are any.” The miniaturised trunk is clutched spasmodically in my sweaty hand, now. “Feel free to help me catalogue the crates, but I’d prefer you leave the people to me. And I’d like to see the contents of the crates intact, too.” I take a deep breath, then add, “I’ll revive just one, for now. If he’s doing fine, I’ll–.”

“There are _people_ in those blocks of wood?” Daniel cuts in, aghast.

I give him a look. He glares back at me. “I will not be accessory to–,” he begins.

“They are _all_ perfectly safe,” I cut in in turn, rather more heatedly than I intended. “Sai’yo was one of them.”

“Was?” Hermione pipes in, curious. I shake my head and wave a dismissive hand at her.

“Black will do his thing tomorrow, and we’ll be inundated by more people and things to do,” I hasten to say. “So we’ll have to maximalise the time that we’ve got today and tomorrow morning.” I send a glare Black’s way, then declare that we _all_ shall approach his project only when the sun is up high, when even the Cooling Charm cannot negate the heat for magical folks, making the time a good one for being undetectable. I would have pushed the time further back to the evening or night, to maximalise my remaining time with that self-sacrificing sod, but many people are out that time, or sleeping and easily roused, so midday is best.

“I’d rather we got the people who came with Sai’yo out, first, before we meet anybody in that ship,” I add, explaining my sudden decision to ask for the trunks from my house-elf friends, just now. “I hope you could help them acclimatise to Earth, before tomorrow comes.”

And then, without further ado, on receiving various affirmations from my growing circle of friends and family, I swipe the two other trunks into my second, personalised mokeskin pouch, then put the mini trunk I’ve been clutching on the centre of the table. I tap it smartly with the tip of a magically charged finger, afterwards, and dive into the darkness of the portable flat as soon as the trunk is back to normal size and the lid pops open.

Portable Flat at Kairo Base Camp of Gringotts Curse-Breakers, 21st May 2004

I make a beeline to the dorms after reactivating the ward that prevents people from crossing over from the entry room to the rest of the flat. Behind me, I can hear people thudding into the nearly total darkness and bumping against each other, but I ignore them, drowned in my own anxious thoughts.

Therefore, it takes me an embarrassingly long time to realise that _someone_ has somehow _actually_ managed to follow me through the previously unassailable ward.

And I realise who the infiltrator is only when he roughly grabs me from behind, spins me round and presses me flush against his shaking body in a tight embrace.

Sai’yo.

No other individual in the living room outside was as jittery and prickly as he has been, which started right after Bil finally unlocked the room and let him join me.

“Miss me that much?” I am startled into complaining, my voice muffled by his chest. Despite the tone, though, I put my arms round him in turn and squeeze him once. – Well, I should have remembered that my blood is _also_ coursing through his body, now, so my family wards won’t affect him.

I should have remembered that he is _my family_ , too, now, and we share a rather clingy, sappy view on family.

Plus, he may have come to the same conclusion as I have subconsciously derived: that our lives won’t be the same again after this, and our holiday ends right now, even if we don’t immediately return to England, as _many_ other people will come between us.

He says nothing to my words, but I needn’t hear anything from him about that.

He releases me, after a long moment, but I linger a little bit more before continuing my way to the dorm – the first dorm to the left from the entrance – where I found him.

He notices the empty bottom bunk on the farthest corner where Teal’c must have left him, when I send a large, gently glowing ball of _Lumos_ up to the ceiling. He moves there, in fact, and starts to look round and up and down from that vantage point.

He gives me an idea, just by doing that.

“Anybody you’d like to chat with, Sai’yo?” I call softly from the door, whence I can see everything inside, only half obstructed by the three rows of three-tiered bunk beds and the two sets of three-tiered hammocks hanging in the spaces between the bunk beds.

He regards me silently and unreadably for a long while, his eyes gleaming darkly and strangely under the illumination of the magical light, like a deep, deep ocean view kissed by sunrise that I saw once from the deck of the _Queen Mary 2_. Thenn, just as silently, he approaches the set of bunk beds sitting against the opposite wall and touches the shoulder of the Jaffa laid out on the bottom bunk.

I bow my head and flick my wand up to levitate his chosen Jaffa away from the bed and towards me, refraining from using my not-so-developed wandless magic so as to secure the said Jaffa better. “Let’s go,” I murmur, then, and pad out of the room with the stiff, inert form of our potential new friend floating in front.

**O-O-O-O**

The entry room of the portable flat is a scene of… controlled chaos, so to say. All the crates are open and away from the walls in not-so-neat arrangement, with their respective lids propped up on one side, and my friends figuratively hovering beside a few of them. It’s like… an informal inspection of some sort, and I’m made strangely uncomfortable by it.

I approach Hermione-Arga first, figuring that Arga might know what many of these crates might hold, after lowering my new acquisition to lie by the mouth of the hallway that leads to the vestibule.

And, before I can ask, she is already picking up something from inside the crate.

Well, _two_ somethings. And they turn out to be some of the staff weapons that Sai’yo showed me in a museum, just slimmer and somehow looking deadlier for it.

It doesn’t help that, when she floats one of the weapons to Sai’yo, he immediately handles it in what looks like a resting position, as if he had been doing so for all his life.

Well, he _has_ , I suppose. I just… don’t want to think about it; not too much.

And, again before I can ask, the young woman already speaks, with Arga taking control of the body or so it sounds, listing the contents of not only “her” crate but also the other ones.

Weapons. Power packs for the weapons. Armour sets. Communication devises. _Explosives_. Uniforms. Packages of rations. Sets of what looks like some _thorough_ personal survival kit. Medical equipment – whose number and variety are _totally_ dwarfed by the weapons. Even a small but well-equipped tank of small water-snake-like animals – “ **For just in case** ,” the note says.

Damn. Teal’c was sending me a _well-equipped army_ , instead of in-need Jaffa for me to care for.


	46. Findings, Part 3

Warning for: view and brief pondering of human willing sacrifices

Valley of the Kings, 22nd May 2004

Barely eighteen hours isn’t enough to be with someone, especially when you know that it will be the last time you are with that person when he is technically, tangibly alive. It doesn’t help that you couldn’t spend those eighteen hours _just_ with that person alone: doing whatever the two of you want to do, and/or going to wherever the two of you want to go, and/or saying whatever the two of you want to say.

But the eighteen hours are up, anyway.

Much of those hours I spent floating the Jaffa one by one to Bill’s bedroom, reviving each of them privately after reading the notes left by Teal’c on them, and having a small conversation with the respective Jaffa about where they are, what was going on, who would they meet and interact with, and what was going to happen then and now to us all. Black, meanwhile and just as privately, caught up with Arga, who turned up to be more than just fellow conspirators with him in inciting rebellion against the other Goa’uld lords and ladies. I didn’t know what was going on with my other friends aside from him at that time, not even Sai’yo, except for hoping that they could help me settle in the confused, disorientated and rather nonplussed Jaffa like we had hastily planned.

And now here we are: before the “pyramid” that Gringotts wanted me to crack open, which is actually an _illusioned spaceship_ surrounded by protective wards powered by the self-sacrifice of only-Black-knows-how-many-people, which contains people and things that they _and Black_ deemed precious enough to sacrifice their lives for, which Black intends to gift _to me_ – wards and all.

I wish I could renege on my promise that we would be here right at this hour _and I would let Black go_.

I wish I could find something to stall the parting for another day, or even just one more hour.

I wish I could say or do something – _anything_ – to make him pause for even just a minute more.

But Black is in front of me, after saying goodbye to me and Arga and the others, and already reaching to the first layer of the warding.

Well, it’s actually _Sai’yo_ who moves and makes him pause in the end, by grabbing his arm and spinning him round by that arm to face me, before pushing me till I bump against him.

And he takes the hint first, wrapping his arms tightly round me and even lifting me up like a little child, cocooning me in flesh and magic and soul, similar but different from what I experienced with my not-human mother.

His escence bathes me as I reciprocate the heartfelt embrace, going so far as tucking my face into the crook of his neck, and I am aware that he has melted into the warding only when the said warding – the first layer of it, the illusion – peels away – no, _retracts_ – before my eyes, to show the grounded spaceship in all its alien glory. I am largely unaware because _he is still there with me_ , as if still corporeal, though I can’t see him with my eyes.

Black keeps his promise. _He is still here_.

Ha’tak at Valley of the Kings, 22nd May 2004

Arga leads the contingent up the ramp of the ship – and it’s a _contingent_ indeed, composed of one witch-Goa’uld mix, one Muggle, three house-elves, three wizards, and _five hundred and sixty-four_ Jaffa. And _all_ of us are armed in one way or another, from Daniel to the Jaffa.

It feels like we are raiding a warded mansion or something like that, instead of exploring an alien contraption – a supposedly benign _gift_ from Black, at that.

Fortunately _for now_ , the Jaffa has obedience to their so-called “betters” well-engrained in them, and Teal’c apparently set me up as one of the said “betters,” hence it was not hard – _too easy_ , in fact – to convince them – the bulk of our _exploration_ group – to look and act inconspicuous during this mission.

On another note, and just as fortunately, Bill snags a hold on Arga’s shoulder before she reaches the yawning mouth of the ship, which shows the “lovely” view of a large room with golden walls, empty but for two bodies in Jaffa uniform and armour laid out neatly on the far corner.

“The wards are thick and… wary,” he explains when she whirls round and glares at him in irritation. “I don’t want to find you fried, you know.”

She huffs and dips her head, thanking him grudgingly but sincerely enough. Then, with her head once more raised up high, she throws an imperious glance at me, who has been walking beside Bill behind her, all in all looking more like a petulant princess than a regal queen.

I raise an eyebrow, somehow feeling rather tickled. Then, perhaps unwisely, I tease her, “What? Forgot you’re a witch? What did the Department teach these days?”

She raises a hand, perhaps to slap my shoulder or something as is Hermione’s wont. But, strangely, Sai’yo tenses up beside me and hustles me away from the path of her possible strike. That overprotective man…. I glare at him, disgruntled at my little bit of fun with my friend – well, and her companion – being interrupted.

But he has eyes only for the said friend and companion, glaring much fiercer and much more seriously than I am towards him.

Huh?

“Sai’yo?”

The only bit of acknowledgement he offers me is to hug me close with one arm, while he addresses Hermione-Arga in a low snarl that sends me _and her_ into open-mouth shock: “Put _that_ away.”

Soon enough, though, her shock turns into confusion, then to blatant hurt as she lowers her hand. The metallic sheen of her armband – one of her _mismatched_ armbands, apparently – catches my eye, but the attention refocuses on her as Arga huffs out, “Do you think so low of me, Jaffa? – I meant to only hit him in jest.”

She whirls round, then, facing the entrance again, and thrusts out the same hand forward. And nothing happens, but for the momentum slowing considerably half-way.

She must have struck the second layer of the warding, meant to protect the outside and directly inside of the ship, as Black explained to me while we were walking here.

I prove it true by following in her wake with a resigned sigh, after slipping out of Sai’yo’s slackened side-hug. I can confront the both of them later, alongside _many_ other matters, but now is for another experience entirely… something that I did not welcome whole-heartedly, in the first place.

Walking through this second layer of warding feels like walking through something thick and tingly but textured, like an electrified field of cotton candy.

A field of electrified cotton candy with the flavour of Black.

As strange as the electric-socket-flavoured Every-Flavour Bean I got the misfortune to eat last year, maybe, in both feeling and sensation, but I put my hand out and wave it about a little in the half-tangible field, anyway.

If this is the only way I can interact with Black from now on, then I take it as it is. “Make do with what you have” has always been my motto since early childhood, and this is just some permutation of it.

**O-O-O-O**

The third layer of the warding is more of an ambience in the air inside of the ship rather than a true layer. The heady feeling that it gives blessedly distracts me from the pairs of bodies that we find periodically as we cautiously explore the hallways and rooms and holds inside.

The _human sacrifices_. Because now I can see that there are cauterised holes on their respective chests. Surprisingly, though, they are all intact, lying within the rune circles that look to be written in blood.

And then, in the numerous on-board barracks, we find non-sacrificed bodies.

Comparatively few are Jaffa soldiers, at that. Most are women and children and elder people. _Families_.

“They are all in stasis,” Hermione informs me as she sidles closer, for the first time since Sai’yo confronted her.

I nod. “Well-preserved. But I don’t see runes here.”

“Runes? Those weren’t runes,” Daniel pipes up from further into the current barrack as he peers round. “Symbols, yes, but they didn’t really match any writing of any specific culture. I mostly expected hieroglyffs to be used, or at least cuneiforms….”

Hermione grins, half-heartedly, though runes are usually her passion alongside… well, _everything else_. I frown and shoot a look at Sai’yo, who gazes unrepentantly back at me from his station nearby, talking lowly with George.

“Magical runes are rather different from the mundane ones the people at that time used. More compact and versatile, for one,” I hear the witch lecturing to the wrapped audience of one, meanwhile, while slowly but surely making her way to him, who approaches her half the distance.

I roll my eyes at the two of them, then motion four of the _many_ escorts that we have to the chattering pair. “Keep them safe and out of trouble, would you?” I request as the four Jaffa approach. “I’d keep an eye on them, but I’ve got an inkling I’ll be preoccupied with something else.”

And just as I am saying that, the mobile phone stashed in my left trouser pocket, opposite my collection of comm mirrors, rings.

My eyebrows twitch.

“Damn. I shouldn’t have said that.”

I am aware that I have said that last part aloud only when I hear George snickering _at me_.

My mood doesn’t improve any when I notice that the caller is Tony Stark.

And he immediately demands to join me _wherever I am_ , when I answer the call.

“What if I am in Antarctica right now?” I struggle to keep my tone level and quiet as I speak and leave the barracks, not wanting to indirectly poke the wary, tense _and armed_ Jaffa – not a good combination, that – guarding and crowding the hallway into some… hyperbolic reaction.

“Wear my extreme-climate gear,” is his ready answer. “Got a nicely set up bunker there, too, so we don’t need to camp out on the ice.”

“We,” I repeat, my eyebrows twitching again. – This is so _not_ fair: losing the steady, humorous, even somewhat parental Black, only to gain this pushy, trample-happy, annoying chatterbox.

And, “Well, of course!” the said chatterbox dares to sound scandalised.

I scowl outright, this time, and fight not to stomp my feet on the decking. “Aren’t you working?” I search round for a good excuse. Ms. Langford said he’s a dangerous man, after all, and I believe her to a good degree, so it wouldn’t do to just brush him aside.

“Technology, man, technology,” he chirps to that, unfortunately. “Sais refused to say, but last satelite tracking found you in Egypt – somewhere in Kairo… and now you’ve moved somewhere, though the map doesn’t say it’s far. I’m on the way right now. Won’t take long till I’m there.”

Aaand, my patience ends there.

“Why in the world did you ask to join us, then, if you’re going to just do that anyway?”

My voice echoes loudly in the suddenly _totally_ silent area… and now I’ve just realised that my wayward feet have brought me to somewhere _totally_ new.

Oh. Not good.

I look round frantically. – Nope. No Jaffa, no Bill and George, no Sai’yo, no Hermione-Arga, no Daniel….

“Damn you, Stark.”

My feet – or _something else_ – have brought me to a dead-end hall, the centre of which sports a large, elaborate ritual sketch… that is still glowing faintly… especially the large boulder sitting on the middle of it.

“Oh, Merlin.”


	47. For Love of Family

Warning for: partly narrative style

Chapter note: In case it is not clear in the chapter alone, the memory snapshots are from the point of view of Black, not Harry.

Ha’tak at Valley of the Kings, 22nd May 2004

I rarely deal with rituals, even in my Auror days. Most of my exposure to rituals has been theoritical, through various tomes and other kinds of manuscripts that the Houses under me – especially the Blacks and Potters – have gathered throughout the centuries. But I do _know_ when I see an active, in-progress ritual, though it’s more instinct than knowledge… and the one I’m facing is just such, while I can discern _nothing_ about its purpose.

Damn. Damn. Damn. There are more than five hundred people aboard this alien spaceship, and I can’t get to them to evacuate them, and Black has been absorbed – _oh_.

“Black, if you’re still here like you promised, I’d like to ask, what’s going on with this ritual? Is it going to harm us? How can I deactivate it? Or if I can’t, can you buy us some time to evacuate this ship first?”

No answer. Ha. Go figure.

But the air is thickening, charging up, without affecting the ritual site….

“Black?” I reach out a tentative hand into the not-so-thin air. “Tell me?”

A broad finger of something brushes against my left cheek, like a gust of controlled wind, while another – a more solid one – wraps itself gently round my outstretched hand, shaking it up and down twice.

Retracting my hand, I sigh and slump in place. “Black, what’s all this about? Why did you kidnap me? What about this ritual? I hope you don’t mean me to sacrifice myself?” Ah, yes, what a “good” memory, being a hapless, helpless fourteen-year-old and tied to a headstone while a monster is being remade in front of you, after being one of two victims in a kidnapping and subsequently witnessing the death of the other kidnapee….

The half-shaped gust of wind and magic tugs gently at my wrist, as if urging me to get closer to the ritual site.

“Promise me I’m not being sacrificed? Not anyone else on this ship, too!”

The invisible finger turns into a cocoon, just so, but doesn’t seek to urge or carry me anywhere.

“Well, all right, then, you pushy grandpa.”

I step forward, right to the edge of the sketch.

And then the finger comes again, now pushing cocoon-me _farther_. – “Black!”

But, strangely, the toe of my boot never goes over the sketch. Instead, as I stumble, my body arches forward and drapes itself over thin air as if over a solid dome. And, in the instinctive flailing that accompanies it, coupled with a “helpful” nudge from the busy invisible fingers, my left hand strikes the side of the boulder squatting on the centre of the sketch, followed by the right one seconds after.

An audio-visual presentation runs before my eyes, just so, as if the private viewing of a very, very, very lifelike collage of short videos, or as if I were an invisible, intangible ghost flying about witnessing select events involving settings and people that are alien to me.

A dark-haired, tan-skinned girl of perhaps ten is standing before me, barely able to contain her excitement. Her deep brown eyes flashes golden, and the echoing tone of a Goa’uld greets me in an unknown language that I nevertheless understand, though in a childlike tone I have never heard from Arga, “Hello! Mother said you are my servant. What are you called? Why are you clad in only a loincloth?”

The scene switches to another place, right after. This time, from the vantage view of a balcony, the Goa’uld girl is thoughtfully observing what looks like a family of four – a father, a mother, an older daughter and a younger son – gathered on the steps to an edifice, talking among themselves. “Mother said human families do not fight among themselves to prove their individual powers. It must be nice,” she remarks wistfully.

The girl is a little older in the next scene, both in body and maturity. “Mother said you cannot be my First Prime because you are my servant,” she frowns. “Silly Mother! Why not? I know you the best, and you are good in all sorts of matters.”

She is not much older, next, but the look in her eyes is definitely not a young child’s anymore. “Father gave me a legion of Jaffa to command,” she says gravely. “But I do not want soldiers, Black. I want a family of my own. Do you think they would agree to be my family instead? Do you think Father will punish them if they agree? I…. I am sorry, for attempting to make you both my First Prime and my servant. I am sorry that Father punished you. Please take your time to recuperate. I have notified the other household staff not to bother you until you are well again. And I shall be most angry with you if you return to duty before you are fully recovered!”

She looks distraught and quite shaken, in the following scene, folding into herself on the edge of a luxurious-looking bed. “Father killed Sanka and his wife,” she says, her voice as wet and twitchy as her face. “Just because Sanka obeyed my instruction to return home instead of continuously attending to me! And Father said…,” gulping, a hiccup, “…Father said I am broken, weak, a failed experiment of Mother’s. Father said he gave me a gift to keep safe and relish, and I was doing that! I have been looking after them all, you know that, and you said it is how family members are supposed to behave to each other. Why was he so angry for what he had told me to do, then? Did he not mean me to treat them as family? What should I do, Black?”

I am greeted with, “Father gifted me a ship under my own command for treating them ‘right’, Black,” by a furious looking now teenager, in the subsequent scene. “It is _wrong_! But I do not wish to jeopardise my people’s lives any further.” She huffs and glower determinedly at me, then, and grits out, “I am going to save my people from Father and his ilk. Are you going to help me? – Very well. I heard rumours through my siblings that there are a few others of our kind who are as ‘broken’ as I am. I want you to _discreetly_ make contact with them. We are going to coordinate an attack… or, barring that, an escape to a distant planet without a ring gate.”

The girl rapidly matures into a woman not only in body, in the scenes following the declaration. Her gaze is far from youthful, now, burdened with something that I am reluctant to find out, and her face has turned grimmer and grimmer. The look is sadly familiar to me, having witnessed it on the faces of my schoolmates when the war with Voldemort escalated during my sixth year at Hogwarts. And what I am witnessing is a war indeed, or at least the beginning of it, in which various plans are hatched and various individuals meet and send messages to each other secretly. It is to be a _world-wide_ war, against this Goa’uld’s own kind and even her own parents and siblings, and I can clearly see that it taxes her greatly, emotionally.

Arga, Egeria, Prometheus, Paracelsus, Icarus – this Goa’uld woman, Pandora, never sees any of them in person. Always through Black – the same Black that is both my friend and ancestor, the same Black from whose eyes I am looking out of. She considers them allies, all the same, and, in one of the rare soft moments she shares with Black, she is even thinking of making a permanent pact with them. “It is like having family of my own! Aside from the lot of you, that is,” she exclaims whimsically, her eyes for once as light and youthful as they were once.

And then the attack is executed from multiple fronts in multiple places, with various plans in reserve and an exodus of Pandora’s claimed “family” mobilised simultaneously.

Sadly, as in any other war, despite all the meticulous preparations, plans still go awry and lives are still lost. Icarus – the scientist among the allies – is lost, with his ships shot from the sky and sunk in the sea before he could release the bombardment that would cover up Pandora’s escape alongside their combined peoples. Because of that, the retreat to Egypt where the allies have secreted a well-stocked and particularly big ship away is far longer, far bloodier and far costlier than they have predicted, and both Arga and Egeria are captured while guiding and guarding the various ships. Paracelsus is also captured, and publicly – not to mention horribly – put to death by Zeus, Pandora’s own father, as “example” against further rebellion for any other underlings. Pandora herself loses her host, and she is subsequently sealed in a stasis jar, after her own mother forces her to spawn children who will not have her “defects.”

Prometheus is the only Goa’uld left to carry out the exodus, aided by Black, and they do make it to their destination. On Black’s urging and pleading, they and select Jaffa return for the three captured allies and the latters’ respective spawns, as all three are queens and have received the same punishment as Pandora. However, they only manage to find and rescue Pandora and her younglings, on the cost of their Jaffa guards, while Egeria’s and Arga’s stasis jars turn out to have been spirited away and their respective spawns scattered. Black returns to Egypt alone, then, as Prometheus, who is Arga’s lover, decides to incite rebellions in as many domains as possible in retaliation for the loss of his lover and her sister.

Unable and unwilling to guard and manage so many traumatised people alone, although by now many magicals have flocked to his aid, Black decides to put the whole exodus ship in stasis and under wards, instead of flying them to the lush but uninhabited planet that Prometheus has previously scouted. Many bereaved refugees offer themselves for the willing sacrifice needed to power the various wards including the stasis field, and Black chooses seven times seven times seven out of their number.

Not a few magicals end up sacrificing themselves as they erect the warding arrays together, as the ship’s protection needs to last not only until a powerful mage with a good heart finds it but also long after. Black himself ties a good chunk of his life force to the warding, vowing that he will beget heirs that will one day discover and lead these people – _his people_ , by now – to life of freedom, safety, prosperity and closeness as Pandora has dreamt and invisioned.

And, apparently, he has chosen _me_ as that person.

I have no choice but to be rid of any remaining doubts, even, when, as I straighten up post-viewing, the boulder’s bottom silently opens up, to expose a sealed clay jar and a small water tank full of tiny things that look like the blend between baby eels and baby snakes.

He is entrusting Pandora – _also_ his family – to me.

I let out a drawn-out sigh to that thought. “Don’t you think I’ve got enough responsibilities already, Black?”

But I lean into the hollow and begin to empty it, anyway.

Added responsibilities or not, Black’s family is my family, too, including this Goa’uld and her younglings.


	48. Pandora's Box

Warning for: fillerish chapter

Ha’tak at Valley of the Kings, 22nd May 2004

“Harry! We have been searching for you! Where have you been?” Whirlwind-Hermione ambushes me right after I reemerge into the main part of the ship.

Déjà vu, much?

I was retrieved by a frantic Sai’yo, thankfully after I had stashed the contents of the hollow – not only the jar and tank but also six other artefacts and weapons – into my new personal-flat trunk, which I returned to my mokeskin-pouch pendant just in time for the upset Jaffa to burst into wherever Black had kidnapped me. With all the problems and complications and responsibilities I have been saddled with, I _do not_ want Pandora’s and her children’s fates to be added to the load, and they surely would if anybody else knew about it. And with how interrogative Hermione is being, apparently I have done the right thing, at least for the short term… which may be all I need, to put a stop-gap measure on all these new people dumped on me.

At this rate, I am going to have to found a brand-new city for all my people… or maybe even relocate us to another planet like Pandora and her allies once meant to do.

Huh.

“Ask Black that, Mione,” I retort huffingly to the bushy-haired young woman I call friend, then make a beeline to the bridge of the ship after Sai’yo.

Seeing that the rest of my friends and my entire entourage are tailing after me, I spare an eye for updates and return Hermione’s question to her: “What happened after Black kidnapped me? Are those people still asleep?”

And, just so, she launches into a detailed verbal report, which keeps wanting to veer off to various tangents, which makes me figuratively jump in to correct the course time and time again. – The people stored in the _many, many barracks_ are still in stasis, as nobody had any idea what to do with that many people while we are yet to settle the ones that we have already. Bill declared that the remains of the sacrificed could be moved safely out of the ritual sites, as those sites are inert by now, and so they have been moved from various spots in the ship, respectfully laid out in one of the cargo bays. The hangars are populated by a quarter of the ships that should have been there, as many have been lost during the flight of the refugees to this place, according to Arga. The ship is still spaceworthy, technically, but nobody knows what effect all the wards and the ever-present ambient magic will do to everything, or even if those will follow us to the outer space. And groups of Jaffa have been dispatched to guard the barracks and engine room, also to patrol the seven decks of the ship, by Arga’s order, though recallable at a moment’s notice.

The report brings us to the control area of the ship. But, before I can do anything else, I must dismiss the Jaffa who have been tagging after us like lost ducklings, as they have been ridiculously clogging the corridor leading to the bridge. “Please catalogue the consumables left in this ship,” I end up saying to the nearest one. “Other supplies and facilities, too. But make sure you don’t damage them or move them away. This ship isn’t ours.”

The Jaffa looks puzzled at the end, but he bows neatly and backs away, soon joined by many of his cohorts. It still leaves lots of Jaffa loitering in the corridor, but at least they don’t look so ridiculously jammed together anymore. Now….

I look round the bridge, at all the stations set with their own humongous viewscreens along all wall-space, and let out a drawn-out sigh. “Sai’yo,” I admit to the Jaffa standing placidly beside me, “you know I know nothing about operating a spaceship, right?”

“I could instruct you, my lord,” he replies, then motions to the gaudy golden throne set on a circular dais set on the centre of the bridge. “The throne has the master control and the master screen.”

“Can you operate the ship?” I inquire as we make a beeline to the gaudy thing.

He hesitates briefly before affirming.

“Well, take the chair, then. Go slowly, though, and don’t go into space. We’re risking too many people, here.” I push him to the said chair barely two steps away. It’s like pushing a mountain without the aid of magic, though… and the said mountain is too stubborn to move on his own volition.

“My lord?” He sounds faintly scandalised, to prove it all.

I huff at him. “We don’t have much time, you know,” I point out. “The goblins will come here soon, if they aren’t already here, after the wards were modified.” Well, I’d like to be avoid being ambushed by Tony, too. The strange familiarity that I felt towards him and that bit of déjà-vu-like moment was _creepy_ , and I could also do without his incessant chatter, after what Black dumped on me recently.

But still, my new, improved relative doesn’t budge, arguing softly that his instructions could suffice and I need to be seen to be in charge to be believed by the present Jaffa, who will gossip to their absent friends during their down time.

Okaaay, my patience has run out.

Without another word, and admitedly with a lot of help from my magic, I trip him and push him into the chair.

The shocked look that breaks through his calm façade is _beautiful_.

I never thought to be figuratively stabbed in the back by Hermione, though….

I only have time to squawk her name and flail a little, before she manages to dump me on Sai’yo’s lap in pretty much the same manner.

“Stop bickering about semantics. Just bring us out of here,” she orders crisply. And judging from the light in her eyes, Arga totally agrees… with everything.

Potter Sands, 22nd May 2004

Moving a humongous spaceship from a desert to another desert may sound ludicrous, but it’s what happens, as nowhere else I own do I have flat enough land for a makeshift landing pad for the thing. Now, at least, the ship is within Potter wards, which currently can be accessed only by me – and Sai’yo, to a limited degree, since he’s not the Lord, and not a wizard, too… as far as I know, at least.

“Huh. Maiden voyage as your ship, and here you fly her to,” George remarks from beside the chair where I and Sai’yo are still seated in, apparently unimpressed with the view of the sandstone cottage perched on a low sandstone cliff on the main screen on the bridge. “You haven’t even named her.”

“Well, I wasn’t focused on naming anything, was I?” I gripe back. “Evading the goblins trumps nearly anything, in any case.”

“What will you tell them, anyway?” Bill breaks in from farther away, sounding rightfully concerned. “You should think about it now, you know, and make sure it doesn’t sound like a lie.”

“No problem,” I wave the fretting away, smiling. I’m used to obfuscation, lying by omission and plenty more, after all, while _surviving_ under the roof of the Dursleys. If I overlay memories of the Dursleys on the goblins, which is sadly rather easy to do, I believe I can treat the latter likewise pretty well. “Now where’s that button for the ramp? – Oh, thanks, Sai’yo.”

“Pick a name before we leave, Harry,” George insists, more seriously than before, much more seriously than I thought he’d treat this naming business. “It’d feel wrong otherwise.”

“Oh, all right, then,” I concede, though privately I agree with him, especially because the ambient magic is subtly but increasingly noticeably pooling round me – and by proximity, Sai’yo – as if in anticipation.

I prod at the alive-seeming thing with my own tendral of magic, even as I muse aloud, “Pandora’s Pyramid?” Hermione – or is it Arga? – gasps from somewhere behind George. “Hmm, no, all right, then. Ah, I know! _Pandora’s Box_!”

And the name settles deep in the ship’s magic that cocoons me, received with happy contentment.

And Hermione-Arga squeaks, “Harry!”

It’s music to my ears.


	49. A New Country Called Haven

Credit to: the fanfiction story _An Avalanche_ by **Lady Hallen** for the name Haven, though there it’s a city instead of a country; also the fanfiction series _Mischief’s Heir_ by **Mad_Fairy** for the idea about reclaiming landfills for habitation

Potter Sands, 23rd May 2004

“Hello. – Um, yes, you. Have time? – Okay, it’s okay you know if you don’t have time. – Okay, well, um, I wanted to ask you something. Maybe a little personal, but I want _all_ of you safe. – So, all right, follow me, please. – Um, do you have people you care for who could be held against you? – No no, don’t panic, please. I just want to keep them safe, too. I’d like to bring them here if possible, if you want it. We could always make space for them, as long as they promise not to hurt or intentionally antagonise anything and anybody.”

It’s become a routine, by now. But in each interview with the five-hundred-and-something Jaffa that I conduct, almost non-stop to maximise the available time, there is always a fresh perspective to be had. It, along with the horrible knowledge that love is both a strength _and_ a weakness, also the adamant desire _not_ to expose any more people to the experience of loved ones being brutalised and/or killed before their eyes, sees me persevering through the day and night. Sai’yo helps me organise my chicken-scratch notes each after five interviews or so, while George helps me unwind from the piling stresses just as regularly.

And throughout it all, the notion that briefly visited my mind while in the ship yesterday hounds me in increasing persistency: We need to either relocate to the planet that Pandora’s coalition set up for their peoples, make use of the various properties I own to house all these individuals old and new in a more permanent base, or buy a _humongous_ land somewhere to achieve the same thing.

It’s a stressful thing, all on its own.

Black Sanctuary, 23rd May 2004

“Mione, could I speak with Arga for a moment?”

“What for?”

“You will know at the same time, if what you told me about your relationship is true. It’s urgent, though. So, please?”

How relieved I am that Hermione bows her head, and her eyes flash golden as her head rises again, signifying that Arga is in control of the body presently. I can’t say I like to speak with Arga more than my old friend, or comfortable at all doing so if I would be honest with myself, but I haven’t been lying about the urgency. Stuffing five-hundred-something warriors in a small cottage for a long period of time is an idiot-proof recipe for disaster of epic proportion, after all.

“Thank you,” I smile weakly at the Goa’uld that shares my friend’s body. “Shall we walk to the lake? I hope you don’t mind sitting out there? It’s deserted, at this time of day. It’d be less conspicuous and… more relaxing.”

“I thought it was a matter of urgency?” Arga points out, though not unkindly; with some amusement, in fact.

My smile turns more genuine, if rather sheepish. “Not this-minute-or-else urgent,” I acknowledge her point. “It’s not easy to say, though, and by now I’m sick of looking at books and paperwork, so I’d rather escape somewhere for a while.”

It’s weird, to hear such deep, echoing voice laughing. But the laughter is genuine, and I can appreciate that much.

We walk side by side out of my office, then out of the house-turned-school altogether. I ply her with small questions about her interests, projects and nature as we make our way down the grassy hill to the nearer shore of the lake, which is fitted with a long pier and a boathouse at either end. She answers the questions gamely, and asks her own.

All chit-chats come to an end, though, as our sandals begin to tread on wooden planks.

The rather muggy air of the lake’s edge turns awkward and a little tense as we seat ourselves on the edge of the pier, half facing each other with one and a half of our legs dangling down the wooden construct.

I take a deep breath, then one more, and another one. All the while, I look into Arga’s eyes, noting that, though the glow has dissipated and the eyes are brown once more, the light in them shows that they’re still _not_ Hermione’s at present.

It makes things easier for me to treat this person as _not_ Hermione despite the body, honestly. So, lowly but clearly, I ask, “What can you tell me about the planet that you and your allies were to transport the refugees to?”

And, under my keen eye, shock widens those chocolate orbs and turns the placidly curious gaze into angry wariness.

“What can you tell me about I and my allies?” she retorts; taking the battling-fire-with-fire approach, apparently.

I give her a mirthless, lopsided smile. “Much, but not that much,” I demur. “And we have no time for this back-and-forth, really. I must set up a big living space and all, as soon as possible, at a semi-permanent basis at least, for the refugees _and_ the Jaffa that Teal’c sent me. I haven’t slept since yesterday, so I’d highly appreciate a quick answer… but thorough.”

She scowls, irritated. I give her a deadpan look.

She exhales slowly. I raise an eyebrow.

She glares pointedly at me. I give her a another deadpan look.

She shoves my shoulder; a very exasperated-Hermione-like… so I reply likewise, by running my fingers softly up her side.

She squeaks and squirms away, startled into laughing.

“Now,” I am forced into a rather genuine smile by the reaction, “I would imagine Hermione would agree with me that mismanaged refugees and other displaced people would be just as bad as facing the original conflict that displaced them.” After all, the _Daily Prophet_ sometimes runs derogatory little articles about Muggleborn beggars stealing from and harassing “upstanding people” after the last war, and I had to bring in some of them myself in my Auror days, struggling and spitting and cursing _me_. “Whatever your personal desires were when you helped Pandora achieve her dream,” and whatever Teal’c actually meant me to do with all the Jaffa he sent me, the matter of which I must confront him soon, “the fact remains that cramming them in a stop-gap manner in a tiny place, or constantly shuffling them from place to place, would be _terribly_ bad.”

She flinches on hearing Pandora’s name, and lets out a sigh at the end. “Black told you, then?”

I nod. “Some.”

She sighs again. “Tell me first,” she stipulates, “did Black tell you about the fates of my allies?”

“He did, to the extent of his knowledge,” I nod.

Her countenance turns wistful, even morose. “I wish I thought of that, when we saw each other. I wish I asked.”

Sympathy for her – _Arga_ , not _Hermione_ – bubbles up in me, rather unexpectedly. “He told me little about Prometheus, Arga,” I tell her quietly. “Only that Prometheus took vengence on the other Goa’uld for your capture, after he helped Black bring the refugees to where we found the ship. He was the last. Black had no heart to proceed to the destination alone, and didn’t tell me anything about it, hence why I asked you. If Prometheus is still here, he’s been lying quite low for thousands of years… or even not Prometheus anymore.”

Tears pool in her eyes. I reach out and squeeze her hand in comfort. “I can help you search,” I continue. “Only after we’re done with the refugees, though. Sorry. I _really_ need your help. You and Hermione and everyone. This is too big for just one person, and there are other things that none of you can help me, still.”

She squeezes my hand back, tremblingly, then shakes her head. “We cannot prepare the planet for habitation in such limited timeframe, Harry. We did put a few structures there, but it has been thousands of years, as you said. Some other Goa’uld might have even found it and used it, although it lies beyond the Chappa’ai system. And you said yourself that you did not dare bring such a magically modified ha’tak out of the atmosphere, even for just a while. The trip to that planet took us three days in our fastest vessel at that time, and a ha’tak travels slower than that.”

I slump. “There goes the neatest idea,” I mumble. “Guess now we got to house them in my properties. Didn’t want to keep them separate, actually, but we can’t help it now.”

We fall into a thoughtful silence, soon after, staring out at the rippling, sunlit surface of the lake and the forest that bounds it.

Then, softly, Arga ventures out, “This planet is populous, and somewhat wasteful. From the memories and knowledge that Hermione shared with me, there are patches of land that are no longer habitable because of terrible pollutants, wastes from chemical factories and other such things. The governments responsible for such areas might agree to sell those places to you, and we might be able to reclaim them for habitation with magic and technology… or magical technology.”

“It takes time,” I point out ruefully. “Good idea, though. If we could recover and recycle the wastes, we might have use for them. We might even be able to sell them, to support the refugees. The Jaffa won’t be with nothing to do, either. They can help with things, if they want. The others, too. And the elves are going to be _ecstatic_ when I tell them we need to house the refugees in a few properties for now…. They’ve been asking for proper homes to care for. _Perfect_. Thank you, Arga! This’ll be a haven for all!”

I beam at the startled Goa’uld and give her a bear hug.

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 23rd May 2004

“You know the magical world will be up in arms, right? Perhaps even literally. I mean, this’ll be a magical endeavour, and you involve non-magical people instead of fellow magicals….”

“I involve the elves, and you, all of you.”

“Not the point, Harry. And before you speak about it, no, involving the Muggleborn circles will just make it worse, though they’ll have the experience for this.”

“You know, Su, the war’s _ended_. We shouldn’t deal with… things like this.”

“No, Harry. The war _hasn’t_ ended.”

I fall silent, watching Susan struggle to keep her composure across from me in the couch-corner of my study at Grimmauld, after that quiet, painful proclamation. Her tea cup rattles on the saucer that she holds in her other hand as she tries to take a sip, and she ends up returning both to the low table between us without getting the tea cup any closer to her lips.

Her eyes are wet, when she looks back up at me, and soon her cheeks become similarly wet.

“My aunt _died_ in hope to end the war, Harry,” she whispers, her voice trembling and hitching. “The only family that’s left, and she tried to provide a better future for me. _In vain_.”

I smile bitterly. “My parents, too, you know,” I point out, not unkindly. “And Tonks, and Professor Lupin, and so many others. It’s _students_ who died the most in that last battle, if you’d recall. We did learn to defend ourselves; but however much we didn’t want to acknowledge it, we were still _children_ , you know. I taught us so we could defend ourselves, not to be _soldiers_ , but many of those deaths still came from DA members. And now we still have to deal with _this crap_?”

My voice wobbles hard by the end, and my own eyes burn wetly.

Our eyes meet, then, and Susan launches herself across the table. In the next second, we trigger each other into losing our respective composure.

Apparently, it’s not just me who never _really_ mourned our fallen friends, despite talking about them several times already.

This solidifies my determination, though. We are _still_ hurt by what _seemingly_ ended six years ago. We can’t take _more_ , so we’ll just… go away, make our own way, _make our own community_ , and sod all those lazy, children-sacrificing bigots.

A new country sounds nice. A new country _in a new planet_ , even more.


	50. Settling In

Author’s note: If you wish to see a different angle or three of a scene in this story, or something in-between scenes in this story, you might like the titbits that I posted to the companion piece that is so “originally” titled _Omakes for A Reason to Live_. It’s just as the tin says: extra or deleted scenes from this – the main story. I’d welcome suggested scenes, too. - Rey

Black Island, 24th May 2004

In the end, despite the many properties available for the settlement, the choice came back _again_ to Black Island, after some back-and-forth arguments and opinions pro and contra from my little group. And the back-and-forth ran all throughout the night, indeed, as now the said little group is not so little anymore, with the _permanent_ addition of Sai’yo and Daniel, and the need-to-know advice from Catherine Langford, Janet Fraiser and Justin’s fiancé Milla, _and_ the mostly unlooked-for, mostly unwanted addition from Tony Stark, who additionally told me most seriously that he hasn’t forgiven me for leaving him in Egypt.

Is it a wonder, then, that all I can _and wish_ to do presently is just lying about under the sun on a bobbing raft in the calm water of the beach?

I even took an accidental nap, I think, as now I’m feeling fresher and lighter, if drowsy.

I’ve formed an accidental shield against too much sunlight and heat, too, apparently, since I don’t feel like a grilled piece of steak.

After the hecticness of moving five hundred and sixty-four Jaffa to this island, instructing them on what to do and not to do for the sake of their own survival in this remote, magically saturated place, introducing them to the hundred wizarding tents that they are going to live in for the foreseeable future, and establishing a communication line with me as well as some basic rules to avoid infighting, this respite is a welcome surprise. There’s nothing immediate for me to do, too, from what I remember. So, for once in a long time, I am free of _any_ obligation.

Nice.

And with that thought in mind, I _deliberately_ go for a raft-born, sun-warmed, breeze-cradled nap.

**O-O-O-O**

Daniel is _already_ integrating into the newly formed community, it seems, judging from how comfortably he is ensconced at the common fire – which is currently unlit – that the Jaffa have built on the centre of their encampment. From this distance and obscured by the sounds of other conversations and activities round the recently planted settlement, it’s hard to gauge what he’s talking about, but he seems passionate about it, all the same, judging from his enthusiastic gesticulation.

I pad along the path between the uniform tents, making my indirect way towards him and the few Jaffa who sit nearby and seem to be listening to him, greeting the Jaffa that happen to notice me with a hopefully friendly and welcoming smile.

I only have time to notice the haphazard stack of notebooks and pencils lying round Daniel, though, before the Jaffa who have been paying attention to him suddenly slide from the crates that they use as seats and kneel _to me_.

I swallow back a sigh _and many, many uncomplimentary words about the Goa’uld_ and wave a hand. “As you were, please,” I implore them, wincing inwardly at the tired and irritated note that leaks through. But I’m indeed _fed up_ with this cautious and reverent treatment from the Jaffa, which even Sai’yo is _barely_ weened off, after nearly half a year of interaction with me and my fellow outcasts and being inducted into the family proper. It just makes me miss Teal’c and his “ordinary guy” treatment of me even more, sometimes.

But, well, I’m here not to gripe, am I not? Not now, anyway. I just want to continue my impromptu holiday from earlier!

It’s _ever so hard_ to relax, still, as I suddenly notice that, in so short a time and with nary a sound, _so many Jaffa_ have been drawn to this place, packed together into a circle round us and the unlit fire.

Worse, this impromptu congregation has the feel of a _military briefing_ such as what I held with Neville and his resistance movement in my would-be seventh year at Hogwarts, instead of a bunch of newcomers nosing about in a neighbourly manner.

I _do_ let out a gusty sigh, this time.

“You need me for something, Harry?” Daniel prods gently, breaking the lengthy, anticipatory, _charged_ silence in which I just… look round rather helplessly at the many blank faces surrounding us.

“I….” I shake my head, sigh again, and steel myself to plod stubbornly to get what I came here for. “Justin always said he can’t get people to play cricket with him. I thought we could play cricket or the like, to wind down, then get him to watch or play when we thoroughly got the game. Well, I’d rather watch, really, but… well… I’d rather play than do nothing worthwhile.”

“Perhaps table tennis, first, if you don’t want to run around everywhere?” he suggests, smiling. “Erm, what do you think, guys?” He looks round at the surrounding Jaffa, rather belatedly. “What kind of sport do you play, usually?”

No answer.

The only audible sounds are the leaves rustling softly and the far-off rumbling of the waves.

Daniel nudges me discreetly, now that I’ve backed myself to stand beside the crate he’s seated on.

I start.

The throng _shifts_.

Uh-oh.

I see little to no visible arms about the Jaffa, but I haven’t forgotten how Teal’c defeated Arga so handily while being naked, without additional weapons but his own self, and fresh after being healed from debilitating injuries. Now there are _five hundred and sixty-four_ of him here: certainly not naked, fresh and healthy, and with possible additional arms secreted somewhere on their persons.

Uh-oh.

Damn. I thought I was going to have a holiday that’d last for more than just a few hours!

I sigh for the third time, then force myself to address the Jaffa in my firmest voice, for my own sake and Daniel’s, “All right, people, we’re _equals_ , here and now. I’m asking you for your _honest_ opinions of what you’d like to do – _fun things_ you’d like to do – while we’re trying to settle everyone and rescue those in need.” Better not say anything about their dependency on the Goa’uld larvae, though. I’m trying to salvage my holiday and make it a holiday for us all at the same time, after all, and that touchy subject will just ruin it _further_. “So, who’d like to start? And please take a seat. Oh, and don’t be surprised, please; I’ve got snacks and drinks for us all. – Tita, ice chocolate, please? And if you’d like to join us here, feel free.”

Many of the blank faces crack, showing confusion. Some show interest. A few show uncertainty. All of them take a seat on the grass in an almost synchronised motion, though.

Still, I allow myself to relax only when mugs of plain ice chocolate appear before each of my guests, with the last handed personally to me by a beaming Tita.

“Should Tita be fetching snackies, Master Harry? Tita baked _lots_ of biscuits when Master Harry said more like Master Teal’c would join us!” she offers hopefully as I take my mug from her with a grateful smile.

“We try each of the biscuits, then?” I suggest. “Don’t go overboard, though. It’s dinner soon, right?”

“Righty!” she chirps, courtsying with another beaming smile. Then, with an unnecessary but oh-so-excited hop, she vanishes into… the Black Lodge, maybe, or Grimauld.

And I am left with _everyone_ somehow gawking at me.

“Ah, um, eh, Harry, who’s that?” Daniel’s the one who expresses what must be running in all of their minds, at length, probably taking pity on my squirming self.

Oh, damn. I forgot that he knows so little of magic and the magical world! And, having spent some time with the unflappable Teal’c and so long with the curious Sai’yo, I took it for granted that the Jaffa would accept the presence of magic readily.

And Daniel is a _US citizen_.

I am going to get in _so much trouble_ with MACUSA and ICW for introducing an unrelated non-magical person to life in a magical community.

And all for a wish of at least a few more hours of holiday, spent with hopefully soon-to-be friends with the bribe of some snacks.

While my _existing troubles_ on so many fronts haven’t been solved yet.

Okay, Potter, time for damage control. Don’t wait, secrecy contracts first, explanations second, freak out later.

“All right, everyone, before we talk about fun things, there’s something – well, a few things, really – that you need to know….”

**O-O-O-O**

“Ah. Only you, Harry.” Arga sounds and looks _floored_.

“What did you do?” Hermione is just as flummoxed.

“You put Cheering Charms on them?” an intrigued George hazards a guess, but he doesn’t wait for my answer before taking off to join a few Jaffa down on the shallows of the beach, who are jousting with paddles on newly made kayaks in teams of two and humorously heckling each other.

I shrug. “I got them all on secrecy contract about magic, then we had snacktime with the house-elves while I explained about magic and the magical world, then Nilo asked if I were going to fish like I did with Teal’c back at the Lodge, then Odi said I might feel better if I went canoeing instead of fishing if I felt antsy, then Nida suggested playing kite for something in-between ‘cause I need finesse for that as well as running around….” I throw an amused look at Daniel – who is running around _doing just that_ on the grass at a distance, who is apparently teaching a trio of Jaffa how to do battle with their kites – then add a nod at the same figure in emphasis. “Daniel took over, after that. He explained about all those activities, and I guess his excitement’s catching, ‘cause then some of them asked about other kinds of war games. I tried to say we don’t consider those war games, but Daniel said there’s lots of modern games which began as troop exercise or the like. The rest is… well, you’re seeing it for yourself. Guess you can take the Jaffa out of battles but you can’t take battling out of them.”

“They have been long conditioned for that very purpose,” Arga agrees. “It does not help that Teal’c sent you the old warriors among them, mostly. They are too used to being soldiers to do anything else, by this point.”

“Well, at least it looks like they’re settling in,” Bill offers, with amusement thick in his voice. “I might teach them chess and the like, when they’re tired of running round.”

Arga laughs. “You will have to wait for a very long time, then, William,” she remarks. “Your time would be better spent joining them like your younger brother, or devising more means of entertainment for them aside from ‘chess and the like’.”

He snorts. “Nah. Still got to deal with the goblins about the ‘disappearing pyramid’. They’re still not convinced. If they want me to swear by my magic, I’m screwed.”

“Ah,” I wince. “Sorry ‘bout that, Bill. They’re stubborn and suspicious buggers, aren’t they?”

“Too clever by half, too,” he huffs. “Better me quitting the job than them getting a hold on that ship and what’s in it. Your money’s not with Gringotts any longer, right, Harry?”

“Nope,” I snort. “Not since that break-in. If not for Andy, I would’ve lost everything. They don’t know I’ve taken everything, though, so please be careful with your words and thoughts when you’re outside of here.”

“Eh, it’s been some time since I last talked about anything to anyone outside of job-related things.” He waves a hand vaguely at me, then at the dusk-shadowed island vista all round us. “Might even get the missus and kid to live here, when you’re established as a community. That is, when you’ve settled the refugees in here, too, not just these soldiers.”

“So you think I needn’t search anywhere else for them to live in?” I inquire, perking up. It’s always been Black’s dream for this island to be populated by his family, for them to live well and safely, and I do like the concept of a single, well-stocked, well-defended place for the beginning of this weird community of outcasts.

Haven Island sounds nice, for a start.


	51. For a Breath of Fresh Air

Author’s note: The reference to _The Lord of the Rings_ is just that, reference… I think.

Warning for: prolonged psychological and emotional impacts of war, violence and forced poverty on children and young adults

Grimmauld Place no. 12, 25th May 2004

“Um, first of all, sorry for meeting you only now, Dennis, and I’m really sorry I didn’t ask after you, after the battle and Colin, before you tried to contact me. I was… not good, myself.”

“No mind. Your people said you’re pinned up somewhere.”

“Eh. Not my people, really. Just friends. But yes, I couldn’t leave what I was doing or there’d be disaster – bigger disaster – later on. Sorry.”

“Friends don’t just _obey_ , you know. Just admit it, Harry. You’ve got your own following, n’is not a bad thing. You’ve got quite a way with words, and you can back it up… for the most part.”

“Erh….”

“Sigh. Just forget it, Harry. I just…. You’ve got some space in that school of yours for me and a few others?”

“A few others?”

“My li’l sis, other Muggleborn dropouts and runaways, a few sympathetic friends of ours, and kids Greyback bit when Tom Riddle got us all by the little curlies that year.”

“Greyback bit _more kids_? That year?”

“Quite a few, actually. Mor’an half of’em were Muggles. You know Parvati and Fay got semi-turned like Bill, right? Well, they went searching for the kids after the battle, after Greyback boasted to them before mauling them half to death. Me n’few others joined in, tried to raise’m, n’we’ve been making do. Parv’s parents got’em a place to live, Lav’s parents donate some money each month in memory of her, and the rest of us teach and feed and clothe them, with some help from Bill’s mum. It’s Hogwarts year for the oldest uns, now, but y’know well how Hogwarts _was_ , forget right now, so I thought to come here. The others didn’t…. Well, we _could_ teach’em ourselves, but the kids need some fresh air too, y’know? They’re already messed up enough, as it is.”

“Oh.”

I sit still across from an exhausted, rumpled, wrung-out-dry Dennis Creevey, who is… well, _unrecogniseable_ , really, from the bubbly, excitable child – and later, teen – that I got to know, who loved to trail behind the late Colin Creevey, nagging me and others with all sorts of questions.

Dennis Creevey is now an old, world-weary man hidden behind the façade of an unkempt, rather sickly young adult, who rambles drunkenly rather than bubbles excitedly.

And he is like this because he’s been dealing with almost literal hell for years, _along with many others_.

The 1997-1998 period likely has never ended, to him and his kind-hearted _and desperate_ fellows.

And here I’ve been bemoaning never getting more than a few hours of holiday.

“I want to meet them,” I say at last, and I can’t care less that my voice is hoarse with the emotions churning in my gut.

The Sussex Smial, 25th May 2004

Parvati Patil is yet another Hogwarts student of my acquaintanceship who _really_ hasn’t come out unscathed from what people have been dubbing the Dark Year. And it’s not just because her prized “exotically beautiful” face – as various boys whispered about, then – has been turned into a mess of angry slashes, which look barely healed despite the long years that have gone by.

She looks so jaded that it’s highly alarming, and her flat gaze is highly unnerving. It’s worse when she has to do a triple take before she finally recognises _Hermione_ , her own roommate at Hogwarts.

If she, the caretaker, is like this, I daren’t imagine how her charges are, and daren’t ask her, either.

Numbly and mutely, I trail after her alongside Hermione-Arga, Dennis, George and Susan to where no doubt more like her have been living – no, _surviving_ – for the past six years.

And, from the tiny clearing ringed by scraggly trees that apparently acts as this place’s Portkey and Apparition point, we troop into… a bigger clearing with even more trees.

I exchange a baffled look with Hermione-Arga, but neither of us dare to ask Parvati about this mystery.

Well, Parvati or Susan, really, as the latter seems unsurprised with everything, but it’s all the same anyhow.

Fortunately, before I can seriously contemplate casting detection spells to find out where the house actually is, a very rude gesture since I’m now a civilian and without permission to do so from the people living here, Parvati reaches down to a spot by the treeline somewhere a little to the left of where we have just emerged, and a section of the turf there slides aside as she straightens up, exposing a vertical, earthy shaft.

“Come on here, one by one. I need to key you to the wards,” is the first thing that I hear from this new Parvati, and I have to fight _not_ to flinch. Her voice is cracked and hoarse and flat, as if she’s too weary to speak most of the time.

I put myself forward, as penance for the near-flinch _and many more_.

She doesn’t acknowledge me in any way, as she holds out a hand for my own.

We crouch by the lip of the shaft, and questing magic with the taste of Bill’s signature washes over my hand as she dips it into the shadows of the deep earthen hole. The magic runs up my arm and washes all over me from head to foot, then, lingering in my mind to briefly rifle through my intentions for this place, before it runs back down into the shadows like rainwater passing over one’s body.

And then, without further ado, without any more words, she shoves me into the hole.

I land on a crouch on the thankfully cushioned bottom of the shaft after what feels like an eternity of falling. As my boots make firm contact with the earthen floor, the tunnels leading every which way that converge on this small spot light up with a soft, ambient light, startling me into drawing up a protective cocoon of magic all round me.

“Oh,” I mumble stupidly, just as the air above me stirs, signifying an on-coming projectile that must be one of the others still left aboveground, which forces me to scurry down one of the tunnels to avoid being landed on.

The lighting on the other tunnels fade away, just so, leaving me alone bathed in a soft yellowish white glow.

Dennis joins me presently, and, without waiting for others to join us or looking at me, waves me to follow him further into the tunnel – the low-ceilinged, two-abreast, down-sloping, winding tunnel, which is sometimes decorated by jutting rocks and hanging roots, though thankfully otherwise dry.

I can’t imagine anybody living in such a place for _six years_ , though, let alone _children_. No wonder why Dennis wanted to get at least some of the children out of here.

But…, “Why didn’t you contact me right away, Dennis? You know you needn’t have any reason even just to talk to me, right?”

The question – the concern – slips out before I realise that I’ve vocalised it. The thing that alerts me to my runaway mouth is Dennis’ stiffening back, and by then it’s too late to do anything about it. I can’t say sorry, either, as it’s an honest and valid concern.

He doesn’t answer, in any case, nor say anything. He quickens his pace, forcing me to follow suit and stifle more of the concern and confusion bubbling up in my mind.

Openings begin to litter the walls at either side of us the longer we walk, but Dennis keeps on our main path in his new pace. Hurried footsteps soon approach, and the sound of my old female friend huffing and puffing follows suit.

It’s eerie and rather unnerving, to hear somebody walking and breathing behind me in this cramped place, so deep underground, but Dennis doesn’t even twitch.

And then everything is blown clear out of my mind, as we arrive at the end of a tunnel, which is a rather large natural cave lit by the same ambient glow from floor to ceiling. It looks like a kitchen, a classroom, a dorm room, a living room and a storeroom rolled into one. A few kitchenette areas dot along the walls nearly equidistant to each other, consisting of a few magical stoves, a few cupboards whose tops act as kitchen counters judging from the few ingredients strewn on them, and a rack of cooking paraphernalia. Stacks of crates and boxes and books and foam mattresses stand on other spots similarly right by the walls, placed close to worn wardrobes and shelves containing miscellaneous items, equally worn. A few beat-up table games stand on yet other spots, side by side with open chests with a few tools – or are they toys? – sticking out of them. Lap desks, writing tools, whiteboards, pillows, blankets, a few sad-looking toys and a few clothes are strewn nearer the middle of the cave.

It’s clearly lived in, and clearly just used, but there’s no soul in it but the newcomers.

The inhabitants _fled_ from us.

My breath stops in my throat, which bob convulsively.

I feel _unclean_.

I am seen as an _invader_.

But aren’t I indeed the invader here? I could have let Dennis arrange a meeting between them and me, or even just a few representatives. But no, I had to be a busybody and invade their home, the only safe place that they’ve got.

And Dennis daren’t forbid me, I bet, because he _desperately_ wanted that spot at the school the Residents at Black Sanctuary opened a few years ago.

Damn it. “I’m sorry, Dennis.”


End file.
